An Ada targeted real-time support peripheral for embedded computer applications

Direct support of Ada is the goal of the Ada real-time support chip, ARTSC. The ARTSC description, software interface, and design trade-offs are presented. The ARTSC provides an embedded computer with timing and interrupt resources necessary for a real-time Ada tasking executive. The ARTSC is a memory-mapped peripheral with each internal register corresponding to a standard Ada data format, i.e. Ada type. The typing of the ARTSC registers allows internal information to be accessed with a single Ada assignment statement. The resulting control software provides increased performance and savings to all phases of the software life-cycle. The ARTSC resources include a 32-b timer, two 16-b timers, an interrupt controller, DMAC, reset logic, and discrete input/output.<>