Challenges in software development for multicore System-on-Chip development

Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoC)-based platforms are becoming more common in the embedded domain. Such systems are a significant deviation from the homogeneous, uniprocessor architectures that have been traditionally employed by embedded designers, thereby making the software development process to effectively target the platform more challenging. Low-resource embedded systems rely on efficient implementations that are not well supported by traditional solutions based on architecture virtualisation or middleware. Within this paper we examine these challenges and discuss ways in which they can be mitigated. In particular, we focus on the contributions made by two recent approaches based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE). We also discuss challenges for future research.