{"id":7728,"date":"2016-02-02T10:16:43","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T09:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=7728"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:47:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:47:59","slug":"openamp-embedded-multicore-comes-of-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2016\/02\/02\/openamp-embedded-multicore-comes-of-age\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAMP – embedded multicore comes of age"},"content":{"rendered":"

Multicore designs in embedded systems are now becoming mainstream as the cost-effective way to implement the complex functionality required in modern devices. There are essentially two multicore system architectures – AMP and SMP<\/a>. SMP [Symmetrical Multi-Processing] utilizes a number of identical CPUs, with a single operating system running on them all. All that is required is a special SMP version of the chosen OS. This is not problem for Linux and is also available for many RTOS products, like Nucleus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the most part, AMP [Asymmetrical Multi-Processing] has a wider application for embedded systems. And this is where new developments are progressing quickly …<\/p>\n

Embedded systems with an AMP architecture are becoming more common. The attraction is that such a multicore system has a number of CPUs, which may be of a variety of architectures. Each processor runs its own operating system, which may be selected individually, or maybe no OS at all. These attributes enable the system to be built in a very optimal way – each CPU and its software are ideally suited to their assigned function.<\/p>\n

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To date, AMP architectures have simply evolved organically, with developers choosing the software components they needed in a somewhat ad hoc manner. The Multicore Association has provided guidance and defined some standards, like MCAPI, which provides a standard inter-processor communications mechanism.<\/p>\n

An issue with AMP systems is overall control of the system, as each CPU is operating autonomously. Things like boot order and resource allocation are not managed in a consistent way. Issues like power management are a nightmare to marshal. Developers either have proprietary mechanisms or maybe use a hypervisor, which could be an excessive overhead.<\/p>\n

The recent introduction of OpenAMP<\/a> changes all that. OpenAMP is a framework for building an AMP system. It does not limit the developer\u2019s creativity in choosing CPUs and OSes, but does provide a standards-based approach to overall system design. Mentor Embedded, who have long led the way in multicore software development, has announced<\/a> the first commercial implementation of OpenAMP.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Multicore designs in embedded systems are now becoming mainstream as the cost-effective way to implement the complex functionality required in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[385,300,367,328,329,377,304,374,378,386],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amp","tag-embedded-software","tag-mcapi","tag-multi-core","tag-multi-os","tag-multicore","tag-nucleus","tag-nucleus-os","tag-nucleus-rtos","tag-smp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10439,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7728\/revisions\/10439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7728"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=7728"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=7728"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}