Operating systems in silicon and the dynamic management of resources in many-core chips

This discussion paper explores the problems of operating systems support when implementing concurrency controls at the level of the instruction set in processors designed for multi- and many-core chips. It introduces the SVP model and its implementation in DRISC processors to a level of detail required to understand these problems. The major contribution of the paper is in analysing the issues faced in porting operating system functionality onto such processors. The paper covers the issues of job scheduling, dynamic resource management, memory protection and security. It provides examples in µTC (a language based on the SVP model) of how resource management and security issues are managed. It concludes that the implementation of concurrency controls in a processors instruction set is very disruptive. However, the author sees no alternatives if mainstream computing is ever to be served effectively by multi- and many core processors.