Mixed-criticality Scheduling with Dynamic Redistribution of Shared Cache

Abstract: The design of mixed-criticality systems often involvespainful tradeoffs between safety guarantees and performance.However, the use of more detailed architectural modelsin the design and analysis of scheduling arrangements for mixedcriticalitysystems can provide greater confidence in the analysis,but also opportunities for better performance. Motivated by thisview, we propose an extension of Vestal 19s model for mixedcriticalitymulticore systems that (i) accounts for the per-taskpartitioning of the last-level cache and (ii) supports the dynamicreassignment, for better schedulability, of cache portions initiallyreserved for lower-criticality tasks to the higher-criticalitytasks, when the system switches to high-criticality mode. Tothis model, we apply partitioned EDF scheduling with Ekbergand Yi 19s deadline-scaling technique. Our schedulability analysisand scalefactor calculation is cognisant of the cache resourcesassigned to each task, by using WCET estimates that take intoaccount these resources. It is hence able to leverage the dynamicreconfiguration of the cache partitioning, at mode change, forbetter performance, in terms of provable schedulability. We alsopropose heuristics for partitioning the cache in low- and highcriticalitymode, that promote schedulability. Our experimentswith synthetic task sets, indicate tangible improvements inschedulability compared to a baseline cache-aware arrangementwhere there is no redistribution of cache resources from low- tohigh-criticality tasks in the event of a mode change.