Multicore Association Board Member Mentor Graphics Releases Open Source Implementation of Industry Standard MCAPI™ for Multicore Embedded Development

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif., April 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Multicore Association (MCA) today announced that Mentor Graphics has released "openMCAPI," an open source implementation of the MCA's industry standard MCAPI™ (Multicore Communications Application Program Interface) specification. The openMCAPI technology provides a Linux library and kernel driver that enable applications to communicate across cores, via shared memory, in asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP) systems. Designed for optimized multicore and multi-OS applications on a single chip, such as networking, printing, telecom/datacom, medical and security products, the openMCAPI technology provides high performance, ease-of-use, and portability to bare metal custom software stacks.

The openMCAPI implementation now provides embedded developers with an uncomplicated, single, interoperable and fully customizable common platform for multicore/multi-OS enablement. Mentor Graphics will continue to maintain and update the openMCAPI project and has released it under a permissive open source license to facilitate inclusion into both open and proprietary operating systems. The openMCAPI code and documentation can be downloaded at http://openmcapi.org, and developer support is available via the development mailing list.

"The openMCAPI open source project enables companies to adopt MCAPI as an inter-process communication mechanism between operating systems," says Markus Levy, president of the Multicore Association.  "Accelerating the adoption of MCAPI from multiple vendors will result in greater product innovation and differentiation and the use of openMCAPI as a common inter-process technology will provide interoperability and reduced risk."

The MCAPI standard established by the MCA was developed to create a standardized application program interface for communication and synchronization between closely distributed embedded systems, such as multiple cores or processors on a chip.  The need for multiple functions on a single multicore system is surging due to the increasing demand for network performance and bandwidth-heavy applications, such as video content or data services. The MCA's mission is to establish a consortium based on common initiatives and resources for effective multicore development.

"The MCA and Mentor's initiatives to improve industry adoption of multicore architectures with MCAPI and openMCAPI, respectively, are key to the success of multi-OS systems," says Glenn Perry, Mentor Graphics Embedded Systems Division General Manager.  "A fully open source solution for MCAPI available to anyone ensures a common platform to build the next generation of multicore embedded devices.  Our commitment to embedded open source is substantiated with openMCAPI, which will continually be enhanced and maintained by our engineering team with the help of others in the open source community."

About The Multicore Association

The Multicore Association provides a neutral forum for vendors who are interested in, working with, and/or proliferating multicore-related products, including processors, infrastructure, devices, software, and applications. The consortium has made available its Multicore Communications API 2.0 (MCAPI™) and Multicore Resource Management API (MRAPI™) specifications through its website. Currently, the organization also has working groups focused on: Multicore Virtualization, Multicore Communications, Multicore Programming Practices (MPP), and Tools Infrastructure (TIWG).

Further information is available at www.multicore-association.org.

SOURCE Multicore Association