NASA Ames, 2010
“ We lost the fine control over attitude, but otherwise we’re sort of OK.”
“Well, its hard to say, really. We can’t verify the status so easily from here. The software layer that we’re using to configure that system-on-a-chip stuff was not designed for this--more for one of those ‘push the reset button if it hangs’ type of consumer application. With our stuff, push the reset button is just not an option. We do that and, well, you know…”
“Incremental failure and self-repair was not contemplated when they designed this stupid software architecture. What a nightmare having to live with this commercial software infrastructure…”
Notes:
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of silicon today, and increasingly so in the future, is software. The software infrastructure used to link the subsystems on a chip, or with external interfaces, is absolutely critical and no real standards exist in this area. While relatively high overhead, general-purpose systems can be used (e.g. Windows CE, Wind River), it is clear they do not meet the all needs of high-performance embedded systems in general today, especially with the sorts of reliability and verification concerns of military applications.