12:20 - 12:55   Paper 3

Making the most of muli-core processors

Gary Bleasdale, QNX

Virtually all of the major processor vendors are focusing their efforts on multi-core chips, which may integrate two, four, or even eight processor cores. Nonetheless, most embedded engineers are familiar only with uniprocessor programming and need guidance on how to design and optimize software for multi-core architectures. This class addresses the problem by exploring a number of strategies for distributing software tasks across multiple CPU cores. It also discusses the benefits and tradeoffs of several multiprocessing models (AMP, SMP, BMP) and discusses how system-tracing tools can help optimize multi-core performance.