A Novel Naming Scheme for System-on-a-Chips Supporting Dynamic Resource Management

The problem of naming has been extensively studied in the field of distributed systems. However, multi-processor system-on-a-chips (MPSoCs), which are becoming more and more important in the construction of complex embedded systems, exhibit unique challenges with respect to naming. These challenges are induced by the need for dynamic resource management, independent development of IP cores and application subsystems, complexity management during system integration, and support for heterogeneous application domains. The solution proposed for naming in this paper is part of the time-triggered system-on-a-chip (TTSoC) architecture, which is a novel system architecture for MPSoCs. In particular, the developed naming scheme supports the integration of large embedded systems comprising multiple application subsystems (e.g., multimedia, comfort, powertrain in a car), each with its own dedicated domain-specific namespace. Furthermore, the TTSoC architecture provides gateways to support the construction of clusters of multiple SoCs, which creates the need for a naming scheme that establishes a uniform namespace across systems of systems.

1 Introduction

Naming is an important aspect in all kinds of computer systems, especially in distributed systems. Nevertheless, this issue is frequently overlooked during the system design phase, which leads to inflexible designs with inappropriate high cognitive complexity. Two fundamental principles which have received high recognition in the design of naming schemes are uniqueness and persistence of identifiers [13]. These properties ensure that identifiers remain valid during the entire lifetime of an evolving system.