Dynamic memory management for real-time embedded Java']Java chips

Java chip has been widely accepted in real-time embedded systems. Those embedded applications usually impose resource and real-time constraints on the design of CPU. In this paper; we seek a hardware-assisted scheme to support the runtime memory management and thus to provide real-time capability for embedded Java devices. We propose a dynamic garbage collection mechanism to guarantee predictable memory allocation time. The key point is that a co-processor identifies the data transition events in Java that memory management is accomplished by a circular heap. We show the design and architecture of the dynamic memory management in details. Our simulation results illustrate that the response time of memory allocation is much predictable, compared to other approaches.