Run-time reconfigurable RTOS for reconfigurable systems-on-chip

High computational performance and flexibility are the requirements of nowadays embedded systems and they are increasing constantly. Moreover, a single architecture must be able to support different applications with dynamically requirements (changing environments). Reconfigurable computing based on hybrid architectures, comprising general purpose processor (CPU) and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), is very attractive because it can provide high computational performance as well as flexibility to support the requirements of today's embedded systems. As an Operating System (OS) is desired to provide support for such systems, it has to use the available resources in an optimal way (competing with the application), since an embedded system architecture usually lack of resources. Therefore, we present here our approach towards a reconfigurable RTOS that is able to distribute itself over a hybrid architecture (comprising FPGA and CPU). In this work we will present the main concepts and methods used to achieve the desired RTOS. Moreover, we present some preliminary evaluation results which show the applicability of our approach.