Wind River has launched an initiative aimed at simplifying the development of devices based on processors with multiple cores. The company's Multicore Processing (MCP) initiative includes chip and software vendor partner programs, off-the-shelf tools and filesystems efforts, a service and training component, and extensive involvement with various standards bodies.

Wind River announced its MCP initiative at the Multicore Expo this week in Santa Clara, where Chief Marketing Officer John Bruggeman delivered a keynote address.

Multicore processors can improve performance and scalability, and increase power efficiency, Wind River believes. However, a lack of multicore standards and adequate tools introduce new development complexities — an opportunity the company hopes to capitalize on, through its MCP initiative.

The multicore initiative comprises five core tactics, so to speak:

• Standardization — Wind River sits on both the Multicore Association and Eclipse.org boards, and leads the top-level Device Software Development Project at Eclipse, as well as the Multicore Association's Debug API effort, it says. It is also involved in the TIPC Consortium, the OSDL's Mobile Linux Initiative, and kernel.org
• Multicore-optimized tools — Software interaction, performance, and concurrency issues such as race conditions can make multicore development complex, but optimized tools such as Wind River's Workbench IDE and Diagnostics dynamic debugging tool can help, the company says
• Run-time options — Wind River says it aims to support the rich architecture choices offered by multicore, with both its Linux- and VxWorks-based embedded software stacks. These architecture choices include SMP, AMP (such as processor affinity), and processor virtualization
• Open partner ecosystem — Includes processor vendors Broadcom, Freescale, and ARM, and software partners ALT Software, Datalight, IP Infusion, Kuka Controls, Solid Information Technology, and Tilcon
• Service and support organization — Wind River's extensive service organization and education/training divisions include multiprocessing experts, it says

Bruggeman stated, “We are committed to leading standards bodies and providing standards-based technologies to ensure the choice, flexibly, and ease-of-use that will ultimately enable the widespread adoption of multicore.”

Wind River last week announced plans to support Intel's new low-voltage dual-core Xeon processors.

Seemingly every chip and processor vendor serving the embedded Linux market has shipped or announced multicore designs in the last couple of years, including AMD and Intel (x86); Sony/IBM/Toshiba(Power); Freescale (PowerPC); Broadcom, PMC-Sierra, and Cavium (MIPS); ARM Ltd. (ARM); TI (ARM11/DSP); Centrality (ARM9/DSP); and NEC and Agere (ARM).

 
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