Very PRET-C (Pretty)

ARPRET (Auckland Reactive PRET) processor is designed by simple customizations to any General Purpose Processor. ARPRET is currently prototyped on the Xilinx platform by customizing the MicroBlaze processor. ARPRET is programmed using a synchronous language called PRET-C.

The overall design philosophy of PRET-C and the associated architecture may be summarized using the following three simple concepts:

  1. Concurrency
    Notion of concurrency is logical but notion of execution is sequential. This is used to ensure both synchronous execution and thread-safe shared memory communication.
  2. Time
    Notion of time is logical and the mapping of logical time to physical time is achieved by the compiler and the WCRT analyzer.
  3. Design approach
    ARPRET achieves PRET by simple customizations of GPPs. The extensions to the C- language are minimal and these are realized through C macros.
These simple concepts facilitate advantages along three dimensions: architecture, language and analysis. Because of the simple approach adopted for concurrency and time, we require very simple hardware extensions to achieve PRET by reusing any soft-core GPP. This is a great asset, since we don't have to rethink PRET from scratch but can build on top of existing advances in computer architecture. Also, minimal language extensions to C are needed so that any C programmer can use PRET-C without spending long hours to learn a new language. Moreover, due to automatic thread safe communication, the overhead of programming complex systems is minimized. Finally, as our timing and concurrency model are simple, we can do static timing analysis of programs using a very simple approach.

Other things to put on this webpage:
  • Describe the purpose of the PRETzel group and the core research areas.
  • Information on the technology being developed (linked to the Technology page).
  • Possible applications of the research or the opportunity to commercialise.
  • History of the group or research field.
  • Details on alternate technologies (research by other groups).
  • The PRETzel vision and philosophy.

Contact us

The contact details of the PRETzel research group is being finalised but as a temporary measure, you may contact Eugene Yip at eyip002[@]aucklanduni.ac.nz.



Design by Eugene Kin Chee Yip © 2009