This article was originally published on October 15, 2019.
Editor’s Note: This content is contributed by Forrest Pickett, Embedded Software Outbound and NPI Manager.
More Cores Mean More Complexity
SoCs are becoming more heterogeneous, with multiple CPU clusters and special-purpose accelerators. As a result, asymmetric multiprocessor (AMP) systems need to be able to run different operating environments side-by-side on the same device. Until now, however, there has been no standard shared memory scheme for the configuration and interaction between these environments. By creating standards and open source frameworks, the OpenAMP project simplifies the creation of these mixed systems. Becoming a Linaro Community Project enables a more formal collaborative approach to driving much needed standardization.
Xilinx Embraces Open Source Community
The Open Asymmetric Multiprocessing (OpenAMP) project aims to standardize interactions between operating environments in a heterogeneous embedded system through open source solutions. The leading members of this project include Arm®, Kalray, Linaro, Mentor, ST Microelectronics, Wind River, and Xilinx. In September, Linaro Ltd, the open source collaborative engineering organization developing software for the Arm ecosystem, announced that the OpenAMP project is becoming a Linaro Community Project, joining the already hosted projects Trusted Firmware and devicetree.org.
What is OpenAMP?
The OpenAMP project is primarily focused on two efforts: 1) Standardizing the way AMP is used and 2) Providing a clean-room open source implementation. Based on the existing open source implementations of Remote Processor (RemoteProc), Remote Processor Messaging (RPMsg), virtIO, and device tree, OpenAMP covers aspects such as life cycle operations, messaging, low-level abstractions, and proxy operations. Resource configuration using system device trees is currently under development, and future work includes faster messaging and standardizing the configuration of AMP systems through system device trees. The OpenAMP framework also plays a critical role in helping any developers abstract the device-specific behavior mentioned above. Now, developers do not need to limit themselves in choosing processors and operating systems.
Get Started
Xilinx OpenAMP framework provides comprehensive documentation, source code, and demos. Also, Developers can use OpenAMP for all of Xilinx SoCs and Versal™ ACAPs. To learn more, visit http://openampproject.org/
