Asymmetric multiprocessing adds special requirements for an RTOS: David Kalinsky describes how AMP can overcome the restrictions that symmetric multiprocessing brings to applications that require predictable real-time response

摘要

Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) is a well-known way to make a number of software tasks run concurrently by distributing the processing load among multiple CPUs. SMP designs typically have a number of general-purpose processors connected through a bus to a large shared memory. It is the job of an operating system for SMP to spread the processing load among the processors, so as to accelerate the execution of application software. Such SMP designs are typically limited to aggregations of general-purpose processors that are identical in functionality.