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A multiprocessor system is defined as "a system with more than one processor", and, more precisely, "a number of central processing units linked together to enable parallel processing to take place".
Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. [1] [2] The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them.
Diagram of a symmetric multiprocessing system. Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing [1] (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all input and output devices, and are controlled by a single operating system instance that treats all ...
Since computer manufacturers have long implemented symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) designs using discrete CPUs, the issues regarding implementing multi-core processor architecture and supporting it with software are well known. Additionally: Using a proven processing-core design without architectural changes reduces design risk significantly.
From the software standpoint, hardware support for multithreading is more visible to software, requiring more changes to both application programs and operating systems than multiprocessing. Hardware techniques used to support multithreading often parallel the software techniques used for computer multitasking. Thread scheduling is also a major ...
MIMD architectures may be used in a number of application areas such as computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing, simulation, modeling, and as communication switches. MIMD machines can be of either shared memory or distributed memory categories. These classifications are based on how MIMD processors access memory.
Usually heterogeneity in the context of computing refers to different instruction-set architectures (ISA), where the main processor has one and other processors have another - usually a very different - architecture (maybe more than one), not just a different microarchitecture (floating point number processing is a special case of this - not usually referred to as heterogeneous).
Uniform memory access (UMA) is a shared memory architecture used in parallel computers.All the processors in the UMA model share the physical memory uniformly. In an UMA architecture, access time to a memory location is independent of which processor makes the request or which memory chip contains the transferred data.