Multicore Packet Processing Forum

Archive for September, 2009

By Eric Carmes – 6WIND Founder and CEO

I found a short but interesting post from Sathyan Iyengar, Freescale on the Web: “The state of multicore software – The hardware’s ready. Now the software has to catch up”.

If we analyze this article within the scope of the Forum, I agree multicore obviously brings more complexity and globally requires a broader range of hardware and software skills to provide developers with the necessary tools and integrated solutions to develop applications faster. In this context, the “ecosystem,” in the ordinary meaning of the word used by biologists “an ecosystem is a unit of interdependent organisms which share the same habitat” makes real sense.

However, I have a different view of the overall problem. The title of the post itself leads to a first comment. So, the hardware is ready but not the software? I agree multicore processors have been available for several years. However considering the high level of integration between hardware and software required for multicore, it is paradoxical and simplistic to drop all the responsibility on software. Are we sure the hardware industry provides developers with a complete set of tools they are expecting? This kind of software is part of the chip manufacturer’s offering and a key differentiator to select a multicore processor.

Secondly, the debate about the level of software a processor manufacturer should provide is not a new one. In the embedded world, a complete solution addressing a market segment is not always the preferred option by the customer who may want to have access at different levels to bring his own added value. Integrated solution may be attractive as it limits integration issues but until now the integration was generally done by a software company.

Will multicore drastically change the game? I really doubt the chip manufacturer is in the best position to provide the integrated solution. Hardware and software are different industries. In the networking industry, we see a major trend to IT / telecommunications convergence and multicore will be one of the key technologies to speed up this evolution. What I expect from chip manufacturer is the “middleware” that masks the complexity of the multicore and offers the ready-to-develop platform that meets the requirements of a myriad of applications. That’s itself a lot of work…

Comments are welcome.