Cross-Architecture Procedure Call
This thesis introduces the Cross-Architecture Procedure Call. Cross-Architecture Procedure Calls (or CAPCs) combine virtual memory, high-speed networking, and compatible-data representations to accelerate an application's computations without modifying its code. CAPCs allow work-station applications to use, on a demand basis, faster or more-expensive processors as compute servers so that each of an application's functions can be executed by the most-appropriate processor. The CAPC process executes in a single virtual address space shared by several CPUs. Instructions for each CPU are stored in different regions of the virtual address space. Routines are compiled for the processor that can most effectively execute them. CAPCs do not require special calling sequences to transfer control between processors. Instead, virtual memory page protections are used to implement transfers between processors. Routines on all processors share access to global variables, including pointer data types. This thesis describes the CAPC construct, a sufficient level of similarity between processors architectures to use CAPCs, and a CAPC implementation based on the SUN 3.0 Operating System.
- Research Organization:
- Illinois Univ., Urbana (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 7055373
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Using memory in the Cedar system
A survey of microprocessor architectures for memory management