Abstract:

Nowadays processors advance towards multicore architecture. In heterogeneous multicore processors, different kinds of computing tasks can be assigned to different processor kernels in order to perform parallel execution, which can provide more flexible and more effective principles. Nowadays the heterogeneous multicore architecture becomes the research hot. This paper introduces the design of heterogeneous multicore processors from architecture, and analyzes the challenges in terms of some important aspects: architecture of cores, interconnect, storage system, operating system support, test and validation, DVFS and so on. The challenges for the design of heterogeneous multicore processors are discussed. Finally we propose the design key points for high performance and embedded realtime applications: the performance and the number of cores for high performance heterogeneous multicores, realtime and lower power for embedded realtime multicores.

Key words: multicore processor;heterogeneous multicore processor;architecture;embedded realtime system