硬件信号量在多核处理器核间通信中的应用

Application of Hardware Semaphore on Inter-processor Communication of Multicore Processor

在多核处理器的软件设计中,核间通信机制是关键所在,有效合理的核间通信可以发挥多核处理器的并行处理能力。中断和查询方式是传统的核间通信手段,但存在丢失中断和查询效率低的缺点。为解决这一问题,多核处理器提供了一种全新的硬件信号量机制,用于核间通信。本文以多核DSP芯片TMS320C6678为例,描述了硬件信号量的工作原理和方法以及模块的结构和配置,并给出两个核之间通信的实例。

In the software design of multicore processor,inter processor communication is the important part. An effective inter-processor communication mechanism can fully exploit the parallel processing ability of multicore processor. The traditional ways of inter-processor communication are interrupt and query mode, which can lead to miss interrupt and query inefficiency. In order to solve this problem,the paper presents a new inter-processor communication way based on hardware semaphore. Taking multieore DSP chip TMS320C6678 as the example, the paper introduces the operating principle, method, functional block and configuration of the hardware semaphore module, and gives an example based on two cores communication at last.