Hey Michael,
We met about a year ago at a class that you presented.
I was wondering if you have noticed any movement in the embedded software community to consider multi-core chips and, if so, what OS?
I ask because I noticed ARM has a multi-core chip, Cortex A9, which is rumored to be in the next edition of the iPhone.
Do you see multi-core being valuable, or too expensive for most embedded products? Do you see any problems with going with a multi-core system?
Thanks,
Greg
Dear Greg,
The technology trend that’s driving all the talk about multi-core is that two or more slow processors on one die is becoming more cost effective to produce than a single “faster” processor.
Multi-core processors are thus of most interest toward the end of embedded systems with severe computational demands. Multi-core hardware brings challenges, especially for the software architectures and compilers and operating systems we mostly use. Thus it is unlikely that multi-core will be widely used in the near term by the majority of embedded developers.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Mike