Architecture/OS support for embedded multi-core systems

The architecture/OS support to improve the performance and power of embedded multi-core systems is discussed. The point-to-point interconnects are used to improve the limited bandwidth in systems-on-chips (SoC) employing a shared bus. Quality of Service (QoS) for multi-processor SoC (MPSoC) can be maintained even if the interconnects utilization is above 90% because of their predictable traffic pattern, which makes efficient scheduling possible. Several approaches using either software or hardware techniques are used to avoid or hide process variations. The task scheduling can play an important role to mitigate the effect of process variation in an MPSoC design. Allocating different clock frequencies to cores is one of the most efficient methods to prevent process variations and other factors such as resource (processor) sharing can be investigated in addition to assigning different clock frequencies. Dynamic thermal management (DTM) applied at the architectural level is a common solution to prevent thermal emergency at the cost of performance loss.