Concurrent algorithms for real-time memory management

The conflict between the performance demands of real-time systems and the shared-resource needs of high-level languages (Ada in particular) is examined. Shared memory requires carefully designed concurrency control, but the traditional approach, which is to embed the entire allocate-release implementation code in critical sections, is unsuitable for real-time applications because it results in excessively high response time. The design and performance of three memory-management systems for real-time applications are evaluated, and it is shown that one system, an optimized optimistic version, does deliver performance that is acceptable for real-time applications.<>