MULTICORE COMMUNICATIONS API WORKING GROUP

Objective
Provides a standardized API for communication and synchronization between closely distributed cores and/or processors in embedded systems.

Overview
The purpose of MCAPI, which is a message-passing API, is to capture the basic elements of communication and synchronization that are required for closely distributed (multiple cores on a chip and/or chips on a board) embedded systems. The target systems for such an API will span multiple dimensions of heterogeneity (e.g., core heterogeneity, interconnect heterogeneity, memory heterogeneity, operating system heterogeneity, software toolchain heterogeneity, and programming language heterogeneity).

While many industry standards exist for distributed systems programming, they have primarily been focused on the needs of widely distributed systems, SMP systems, or specific application domains (for example scientific computing.) Thus, the Multicore Communications API from the Multicore Association has similar, but more highly constrained, goals than these existing standards with respect to scalability and fault tolerance, yet has more generality with respect to application domains.

Status
The MCAPI working group has completed the first version of this specification.

• Dowload the The Multicore Communication API (MCAPI).
• Download an Example Implementation of the Multicore Communications API.

Chairpersons
Sven Brehmer (President, PolyCore Software)
Jim Holt, Ph.D., Senior Member of the Technical Staff, Freescale Semiconductor