RCSoS: An IEC 61508 Compatible Server Model for Reliable Communication

Abstract

In most cases of safety-related systems, the network is an indispensable part. At this point, the system reliability is as important as the system communication quality. With the emergence of multi-core architectures, the first generation usually aims to provide reliable and deterministic computing resources. Therefore, with the boost requirement of reliability and throughput that cannot be satisfied by general single-core processors, the deployment of safety-related systems is transferred and processed in multi-core environments. This paper proposes Reliable Communication Server on SPU (RCSoS), which is a server model for reliable communication utilizing SPU (Synergistic Processor Unit) in Cell/B.E. (Cell Broadband Engine). It simulates SPU as a communication server and guarantees the reliability and determinacy by the isolation mode of SPU and contract model. RCSoS has been implemented in PlayStation 3. It could dynamically adjust parameters, and inform applications on contract violations. The building process conforms IEC 61508, which guarantees the reliability of the life cycle. Besides, experiments show that the performance of this model is acceptable for the application requirements of network communication. And also the formal verification on the model theoretically guarantees the functional safety of the system.