Towards a CLI Assembly Format for Embedded Systems

Bytecode-based Middleware and virtual execution environments have become popular in development for embedded Systems. The ECMA/ISO Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specifies a bytecode-based execution environment (Common Language Runtime) and a comprehensive class library. As Microsoft’s CLI implementation the .NET Compact Framework was built for high-end mobile devices. It would be reasonable subset of this technology to low-end embedded systems as well. Often CLI applications use a small subset of the CLI class library, but the whole memory footprint is basically determined by the class library. The loose coupling of CLI applications and utilized library features requires dynamic linking before execution. The process of dynamic linking causes long startup times and high memory consumption in addition to the high memory footprint of the CLI class library. For application in low-end embedded systems the memory footprint must be minimal. To overcome memory requirements of the class library, an minimal application format that includes all essential class library features is reasonable. Self-contained CLI assemblies as an approach for size-optimized deployment format for low-end embedded systems, are presented in this paper.