The State of Multicore Software Development

I've just come back from the Multicore Expo in Santa Clara and it was striking how far multicore has progressed since we started looking into it. The number of processor companies and tools companies was a big surprise.

One of the big issues in multicore is specialism vs generalism. Some multicore processor providers design a multicore processor for a specific job (e.g. Ageia made a processor for simulating physics in computer games, Icera make a software defined modem for 3G). The advantage of making a special-purpose processor is that you can cut out all the features of the processor you don't need for the application and just concentrate on getting the maximum performance for the desired application. You can have your own software developers working on optimizing the software specifically for your application. The advantage of a processor is that you can improve the software later, and maybe even apply the processor to a different application which has similar requirements. Some companies (like our neighbours Critical Blue) take this even further and have tools that take an application and make a processor specially for it.