Are you leveraging multicore processors effectively?
With the availability of multicore processors, system hardware costs can be substantially reduced by hosting different OS environments on different cores and eliminating redundant power supplies, RAM, and other hardware that's present in multiplatform computing systems. Tasks dedicated to a processor core can respond to real-time events with virtually zero delay because they don't have to share CPU cycles with human-directed tasks. Time-critical functions supported by legacy code can be preserved by hosting that code on a dedicated core.
But the software needed to enable multiple independent OSes to run on different cores in a reliable manner is not trivial, leading some to say that there's a real software crisis in embedded computing, driven by the need to get the maximum performance/dollar from multicore processors. A small group of software companies is focused on enabling this.
The key to making these OSes work is to exploit the virtualization hardware that's built into the processor. Intel Architecture processors, for example, provide special hardware to facilitate sharing I/O in a controlled manner.
Moving to a multicore PC architecture environment gives OEMs, who may have used a mix of processor architectures in the past, access to more cost-effective hardware platforms and up-to-date interfaces for communication and I/O, like USB and PCI Express. It also provides the ability to more easily incorporate new communication protocols for interaction with external systems and to adapt more sophisticated data reporting methods. Embedding the PC architecture into a control or instrumentation product provides the additional benefit of enabling the application-development-software environment to run directly on the target hardware, simplifying development effort and saving time.
The availability of multicore processors promises to yield big benefits for those OEMs who choose to adopt the model of multiple OSes on multicore chips. Such an approach will enable embedded system designers to add new features to their applications, gain access to powerful software development environments, and preserve past investments in intellectual property.
Paul Fischer is a senior technical engineer at TenAsys. You can reach him at paul.fischer@tenasys.com.
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