| February 23, 2009 11:00 PM PST | |
by Craig Szydlowski
Infrastructure Processor Division
Intel Corporation
Many software applications are about to be turned upside-down by the transition of CPUs from single to multi-core implementations. In new designs, software developers will be tasked with keeping multiple cores busy to avoid leaving performance on the floor. In legacy designs, you will be faced with the challenge of having single-threaded applications run efficiently on multiple cores. Programs will need to serve up code threads that can be dished out to several cores in an efficient manner. Code threading breaks up a software task into subtasks called threads which run concurrently and independently.
The groundwork is being laid for the transition to multi-core in 2005. Tools are available to help you develop efficient and reliable threaded code. Embedded application providers should plan their move to threaded programming models to fully utilize the performance of these next generation multi-core CPUs.
For more complete information about compiler optimizations, see our Optimization Notice.


Todd Bezenek
565
-Todd