A Design Framework for Embedded Linux Drivers

Abstract

A device driver is a software layer to talk to peripheral hardware device. Because of the need for hardware knowledge and the lack of appropriate assistant tool, writing device drivers has always been tedious and error-prone. This paper proposes a design framework to facilitate the driver development for embedded Linux OS. The framework provides a structural design approach and automatic tools for design. It consists of a two stage design process. The first stage is to automatically generate a driver code skeleton from user-specified configurations. In the second stage, a user can complete the driver code using C language and our proposed Embedded Driver-Specific Language (EDSL). The driver code written in EDSL not only is more concise and easier verified, but also can be automatically synthesized to C codes. A preliminary implementation of the design framework has been applied to develop device drivers for an ARM7-based platform and obtained favorable results.