Multicore is becoming increasingly popular in today’s embedded systems. In order to circumvent the physical limitations of silicon design, stacking up multiple homogenous or heterogeneous processors is often a preferred approach. This is particularly true for many convergent devices that require media-rich graphics, always-on functionality, multi-band connectivity, or extensive processing requirements such as car “infotainment” systems or portable medical devices.

In many cases, to facilitate the divergent requirements for subsystems, there is a need for an environment where heterogeneous operating systems can co-exist within multicore systems. For instance, a Real Time Operating System (RTOS) is required to support deterministic real-time behavior (on the data plane) for a communication subsystem, whereas a General Purpose OS (GPOS), such as embedded Linux, is used to run applications on the control plane where very little real-time requirements exist. Such heterogeneous operating system environments demand a system level approach in designing an application. This paper discusses how multicore designs are creating the need for a true multi-OS system. Within this discussion Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP), Asymmetric Multi-Processing (AMP), multicore hardware and software, development tools, and actual use cases will be covered.