QNX Software Systems and ARM are collaborating to develop symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) solutions for automotive multimedia applications. QNX, a developer of real-time operating systems and middleware for telematics and infotainment applications, among others, plans to extend support to the ARM11 MPCore multicore processor and is collaborating with ARM to accelerate the adoption of SMP technology in the automotive market and provide software flexibility for multimedia and navigation systems.

"Car manufacturers and tier-one suppliers face the challenge of designing system architectures that can support changing system requirements for many years of production and the lifetime use of a vehicle,” said QNX automotive segment manager Andrew Poliak. “Furthermore, requirements for telematics and infotainment systems vary widely across manufacturers and geographic regions, making it imperative that in-car systems are designed to be as flexible as possible."

The ARM11 MPCore can be configured to contain one and four processors for aggregate performance of 3100 Dhrystone MIPS with power consumption less than 950 mW. Poliak said QNX’ Neutrino RTOS offers a patented implementation of SMP that allows applications to take full advantage of multicore hardware. It also supports bound multiprocessing (BMP), a multiprocessing model that combines the scalability and performance of SMP with simplified migration of existing in-car software applications.