In an ideal world, programmers switching from 1 to n processors would see their code run n times as fast, with no code changes. Things aren't that simple, unfortunately, but as you'll see, there are a number of ways the RTOS can make things easier.

Although the concept of a multiprocessor system has been around for decades, it's only recently attained commercial viability as demand grows for scalable, high-performance, highly reliable systems. This increased demand for so-called "highly available" CPU-intensive systems (systems with 99.999% uptime) has spawned several types of multiprocessor systems, each designed for a specific application. Multiprocessor systems are widely used in applications involving 3D graphics with audio/video compression and decompression running on specialized multiprocessor chips (for example, Fusion 150 from Pixel Fusion). These systems are also seen in high bandwidth network traffic switch/router designs, including special network management features on specialized multiprocessors (for example, SB1250 with SB-1 chip of Broadcom's Mercurial family of programmable network processors).