Heterogeneous architectures are those which combine two or more different types of microprocessors or microcontrollers. They enable the development of advanced embedded systems that consolidate functionality and connectivity to produce high-performance embedded devices.

Mentor Graphics is delivering an integrated development solution that spans device configuration, deployment and system optimization for multi-operation system devices that include the Linux platform, real-time operating system (RTOS), and bare-metal applications. This solution helps design teams to quickly develop high-performance applications for industrial, medical, automotive, telecommunications, networking, and consumer electronics products.

The Mentor Graphics embedded development solution for heterogeneous multicore systems adds several new features that can execute natively or with a

“Next generation SoCs enable the development of unique embedded systems by extending today’s multicore homogeneous architectures with heterogeneous cores,” stated Markus Levy, president of the Multicore Association and chairman of the Multicore and the Internet of Things (IoT) Developers Conferences.

“Mentor Graphics’ continued investment in embedded software and delivery of an integrated heterogeneous multicore development solution will enable embedded developers to more easily take full advantage of these complex heterogeneous SoCs.”

Successful use of heterogeneous multicore SoCs that combine multicore micro-processors and multicore micro-controllers extends beyond the traditional use of Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) and Asymmetric Multi-Processing (AMP) approaches.

“Mentor Graphics’ market-leading embedded software technologies and advanced multicore devices from Texas Instruments create an ideal ecosystem so that our customers can develop leading-edge products with ease,” stated Adrian Valenzuela, marketing director, Texas Instruments. “Mentor has a unique and comprehensive solution to manage the complexities of multicore heterogeneous development.”

Features:

－ Support for the remote processor framework (remoteproc) for Mentor Embedded Linux, Nucleus RTOS and bare-metal applications. This aids in the configuration, development, deployment and management of operating systems and applications across heterogeneous SoC cores

－ Scalable implementations of VirtIO, rpmsg and the Multicore Communications API (MCAPI) across operating systems to provide efficient inter-processor communication (IPC) for separated device subsystems

－ Graphical debugging and performance analysis tools that enable a system-wide, synchronized perspective across operating systems and functions