Research On Key Drivers For Network Processor With Multiprocessing System On Chip

With the development and the popularization and application in recent years, Internet was requested by a higher bandwidth, more complex service. In order to meet these growing network needs, the key technology to the traditional router hardware network solutions, which is general processor or ASIC, has been replaced by the high - performance of multi-core network processor gradually, since that they can't balance with the speed and flexibility. Combined with the high-speed ability of ASIC and the flexibility of RISC processors, the high - performance of multi-core network processor can process network data packets in high-speed specified. Thus, how to control hardware effectively by using software in order to make full use of the hardware performance become more and more important.The characteristics and importance of parallel software design based on multi-core network processor were described in this paper under the background of the multi-core network processor hardware architecture design and research. By placing the study emphasis on the kernel software drivers basic principles and R & D requirements, the commonality and individuality between multi-core network processor software and general single-core embedded system development were cleared. According to characteristics of the XDNP router evaluation system board, There are several key points in software drivers proposed are the foundation of upper layer application software development, such as RTOS booting and start, the initial configuration of the multi-core system hardware on chip, the loading of application code on multi-core on-chip high-speed packet processing engines, and multi-core sharing of the kernel routing table technology. In the paper it was proposed an overall plan on XDNP on-chip initial configuration and then several concrete solutions were given to realize one by one on the several key points which proposed above. At last in this paper, the function verification on the realization of those key technologys was completed by the use of the XDNP network application system board. The verification results indicate that the designs meet the requirements of multi-core network processor program and can be operated stability on the XDNP router evaluation system board.