Multi-Core Embedded Systems

04/28/2011 · No Responses

Details a real-world product that applies a cutting-edge multi-core architecture

Increasingly demanding modern applications—such as those used in telecommunications networking and real-time processing of audio, video, and multimedia streams—require multiple processors to achieve computational performance at the rate of a few giga-operations per second. This necessity for speed and manageable power consumption makes it likely that the next generation of embedded processing systems will include hundreds of cores, while being increasingly programmable, blending processors and configurable hardware in a power-efficient manner.

Multi-Core Embedded Systems presents a variety of perspectives that elucidate the technical challenges associated with such increased integration of homogeneous (processors) and heterogeneous multiple cores. It offers an analysis that industry engineers and professionals will need to understand the physical details of both software and hardware in embedded architectures, as well as their limitations and potential for future growth.

Discusses the available programming models spread across different abstraction levels

The book begins with an overview of the evolution of multiprocessor architectures for embedded applications and discusses techniques for autonomous power management of system-level parameters. It addresses the use of existing open-source (and free) tools originating from several application domains—such as traffic modeling, graph theory, parallel computing and network simulation. In addition, the authors cover other important topics associated with multi-core embedded systems, such as:

Architectures and interconnects
Embedded design methodologies
Mapping of applications
Programming paradigms and models of computation
Power optimization and reliability issues
Performance tools and benchmarks
Resource management
Multithreading
Multi-core programming challenges
Compiler and operating system support

This is a detailed discussion of research on the interaction between multi-core systems, applications and software views, and processor configuration and extension, which add a new dimension to the problem space. The text offers a useful overview of the most widespread industrial and domain-specific solutions, providing several examples of working implementations.