![]() “It’s a heterogeneous environment not a homogeneous environment,” said Schlachte.ĪRC has introduced VRaptor to allow it to build multiple subsystem platforms for audio and video processing. “It will be the same instruction set 18 months is a reasonable estimate,” East said to EE Times.Ĭarl Schlachte, chief executive officer, at ARC International plc (Elstree, England) does not dismiss symmetric multiprocessing but confesses it lies largely outside his philosophy.ĪRC’s VRaptor architecture is based on one or more CPUs from its ARC700 series accompanied by multiple configurable extensions for SIMD (single instruction multiple data) and DSP. The next-generation processor will follow the same ARMv7 instruction architecture as used by Cortex and take about 18 months to complete. However, since then little has been heard about such a core and at an analysts’ conference held to discuss ARM’s Q4 2006 financial results it was disclosed that ARM has signed a licensee for a next-generation processor to follow the current Cortex range, but again without explicit mention of a multicore approach. Cortex is the follow-on processor range to ARM11. In January 2006 Warren East, chief executive officer of ARM, hinted that a multiprocessing version of one of ARM’s Cortex series processors could be in design. Smythe wouldn’t comment on whether the ARM1176 processor core would be designed into the SH-Mobile G3. The ARM1176JZF-S processor supports 3D graphics through its integrated, floating-point processor and supports Java. Renesas also announced in February that it had licensed the ARM1176JZF-S processor for use in mobile and consumer devices. We do see SMP forming a part of the requirements going forward,” said Smythe. The inclusion of the ARM processor allows a straightforward porting of the Symbian operating system and the porting of Symbian 9.3 to SH-Mobile G2 was announced last month. “There’s an ARM1136 as the applications processor an SH-X2 for multimedia processing and an ARM926 baseband processor.” But he was prepared to list the processors in the current generation of Renesas mobile phone processor, the SH-Mobile G2. “I can’t tell you what will be in G3 exactly because it is still in design,” said Smythe. However, in G3 multiprocessing is likely to be based on a heterogeneous array of processors, according to Ian Smythe, mobile business development manager for Renesas Technology Europe. John Goodacre, the program manager for multiprocessing at ARM, has claimed that the market is moving towards adoption of multiprocessing across a broad range of market segments, and his company has licensed more than 10 chip companies to use the ARM11 MPCore. Renesas announced it was licensing the ARM11 MPCore in February 2006 and that it planned to roll out its first products using the processor in 2008 with a primary focus on digital home electronics and office-automation systems. However, there may come a point when systems could benefit from the reduced physical complexity of symmetrical multiprocessors. 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. This combines the advantages of integration and reduced die area with minimum development rework. For other SMP architectures, intended to be more general, there is still a generic problem of how to write software for parallel processing.Īt 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 helps make software problems tractable. ![]() Some symmetric multiprocessors have been designed to be application specific – PicoChip Ltd. 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. ![]()
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