Embedded technology, multicore and virtualization. Are you up to date?
By Casey Weltzin, Product Manager, National Instruments
The world of embedded design has changed dramatically in the last decade, and its evolution shows no signs of slowing down. Multicore processing (in the form of Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) and Asymmetric Multiprocessing (AMP)) is becoming mainstream, with embedded multicore CPUs expected to grow revenue by a factor of 6 from 2007 to 2011 (Venture Development Corporation ). In addition, FPGAs (Field Pogrammable Gate Arrays) have grown in capability and decreased in cost, providing high-speed functionality that could only be achieved with application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Finally, virtualization is blurring the connection between hardware and software by allowing multiple operating systems to run on a single processor. With the rapid evolution of these technologies, how likely are developers of embedded systems to catch up? This article will briefly explain what these technologies mean for embedded designs and how you can take advantage of these changes while keeping development time to a minimum.
