Comparison of service call implementations in an AUTOSAR multi-core OS

Multi-core processors are gaining a foothold in the domain of embedded automotive systems. The AUTOSAR Release 4.1 establishes a common standard for the use of multi-core processors in automotive systems. While interfaces and functionalities are well defined in the specification, the actual implementation is left open to the software manufacturers. We exploit this room that is left by the specification for the implementation of cross-core service calls. In this paper, we compare two opposite implementation approaches that can be used in shared-memory multi-core processors. The actual execution of a service call either takes place on the affected core, or on the invoking core. Our performance evaluations indicate an advantage of a lock-based approach with execution on the invoking core.