Real-time scheduling co-processor in hardware for single and multiprocessor systems

Multiprocessor real-time systems are difficult to design to achieve predictable time behaviour. Our approach to simplification of the design and timing analysis is to use a scheduling coprocessor. We present the real-time services provided by the coprocessor as well as its implementation and timing. The scheduling coprocessor is a specially designed digital chip and is called the Real-Time Unit (RTU) with latency in the /spl mu/s domain.