What next for symmetric multiprocessing on SoC?

By Peter Clarke, Courtesy of EE Times Europe
Mar 5 2007 (15:26 PM)

LONDON — Despite moves by Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to bring their dual and four-core processors into embedded applications, there is a sense that some of the companies that pioneered symmetric multiprocessing in the system-on-chip (SoC) world are finding it harder to make progress.

Some symmetric multiprocessors have been designed to be application specific " PicoChip Ltd. (Bristol, England) Alphamosaic Ltd. (Cambridge, England) are two examples. This helps make software problems tractable. For other SMP architectures, intended to be more general, there is still a generic problem of how to write software for parallel processing.

At present, the trend is for multiple processors or SoCs, each with their own proven software payload, to be brought together to create heterogeneous multiprocessor systems. This combines the advantages of integration and reduced die area with minimum development rework. It allows developers to concentrate on additional features often in the form of algorithms set to run on an additional processor in the heterogeneous SoC. However, there may come a point when systems could benefit from the reduced physical complexity of symmetrical multiprocessors.

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