Targetting PLDs for high-level High Integrity Systems Development

Hilton, Adrian and Hall, Jon G. (2002). Targetting PLDs for high-level High Integrity Systems Development. Technical Report 2002/07; Department of Computing, The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.00015ffa

Abstract

Combined hardware/software systems are increasingly being used for safety-critical systems, with hardware taking processing load off the software. We have produced a design template that allows SPARK Ada, a programming language used for safety-critical systems development , to be compiled and interpreted on programmable logic devices. In this paper we describe a high-integrity PLD-based interpreter for compiled Ada code. The intention is to allow developers to select sections of a SPARK Ada program to be interpreted on hardware, rather than run in software, in parallel with the rest of the program running on a conventional CPU. This extends the reach of high integrity systems development to encompass PLDs.