Memory Footprint Reduction with Quasi-Static Shared Libraries in MMU-less Embedded Systems

Despite a rapid decrease in the price of solid state memory devices, system memory is still a very precious resource in embedded systems. The use of shared libraries is known to be effective in significantly reducing memory usage. Unfortunately, many resource-constrained embedded systems lack MMU, making it extremely difficult to support this technique. To address this problem, we propose a novel shared library scheme called the quasi-static shared library. In quasi-static shared libraries, global symbols are bound to pseudo-addresses at linking time and the actual physical addresses are bound at loading time. This scheme is made possible by emulating MMU’s memory mapping feature with a Data Section Base Register (DSBR) and a Data Section Base Table (DSBT). Quasi-static shared libraries do not require symbol tables which take up time and space at runtime. We have implemented the proposed scheme in a commercial ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) home network gateway and conduc...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: RTAS
• Authors: Jaesoo Lee, Jiyong Park, Seongsoo Hong
• Keywords: Memory Usage, Quasi-static Shared Libraries, Real-Time Technology, RTAS 2006, Shared Libraries