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Lecture 1

Questions

  • What are the three types of parallel processing?
    • Multiple computers
    • Multicore systems
    • Multithreading
  • What is the relation of time with respect to correctness in Realtime systems?
    • Correctness is tied to whether the task is done with some deadline.
    • This is not usually the case with other software systems.
    • We would just call it a “slow” system as long as it produces the intended output
  • What are the three types of time limits?
    • Hard
    • Firm
    • Soft
  • What is a hard time limit and examples?
    • $t_{finish} > deadline \implies \text{incorrect}$
    • Any safety critical industrial application’s event-triggered events
    • A chemical plant’s pressure controller that has to trigger within 10s of an event else the plant may explode
  • What is a firm time limit and examples?
    • Completing a task beyond the deadline has no value but is not harmful either
    • Rendering a frame after its successor has already been displayed
  • What is a soft time limit and examples?
    • Completing a task beyond the deadline has diminishing returns
    • Stock trading
  • What are the two reference points for defining timing constraints?
    • Event-triggered
    • Pre-scheduled
  • What is latency?
    • Event-triggering - completion
  • What is jitter?
    • Expected frequency - actual frequency
    • Expected start time - actual start time
  • What is the Harvard architecture?
    • Separate buses for instruction and data