ABSTRACT
Multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) architectures are emerging as one of the technologies providing a way to face the growing design complexity of embedded systems, since they provide exibility of programming, allied to specic processor architectures adapted to the selected problem classes. is leads to gains in compactness, low power consumption, and performance. e trend of integrating multiple processor cores on the same chip will be even more accentuated in the near future. e SoC system driver section of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors [] predicts that the number of processor cores will increase fourfold per technology node in order to match the processing demands of the corresponding applications. Typical MPSoC applications like network processors, multimedia hubs, and base-band telecom circuits have particularly tight time-to-market and performance constraints that require a very ecient design cycle.
