Porting Linux to ERC-32 Architecture

Overview

This paper describes the work involved in porting a variant of the Linux kernel for MMU-less CPUs (uCLinux) to the ERC-32 platform. ERC-32 is an ESA approved radiation-tolerant SPARC V7 processor developed for space applications, and its interest lies in the open nature of its design and specification in order to increase the availability of development tools, operating systems and application software, and therefore reduce cost of space missions. This paper includes a description of the work involved in the realization of this Linux port, the customization possibilities of the final product and a description of the provided end-user development environment consisting of GNU tools. Finally, the paper will describe performance testing results and talk about future enhancements.