Delivering on standards: balancing portability and performance

As high-performance embedded computing systems become more commonplace in a variety of applications, the need for supporting standards becomes more critical. Specifications developed by concensus, such as Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Vector, Signal, and Image Processing (VSIP), and “de facto” standards such as MATLAB(R), provide a means for developers to create real-time applications across multiple platform technologies. The balance between portability and performance presents some significant challenges, including balancing the application of tools tuned to specific platforms with the use of standard, but possibly slower, code and tools