Program Design Methodology Based on Multithreading NP

In order to reduce the speed gap between today´s processor and memory, many processors adopt multithreading technology, Intel IXP series Network Processor (NP) is such a typical kind. This paper takes IXP series Network Processor for example, first analyzes multithreading mechanism; then targeting on how to realize multi-thread synchronization, presents three design methods and a specific example which could illustrate the difference between these methods; at last does some experiments according to different design methods, from experiment results draws some conclusions which would be useful in designing applications based on multithreading NP, including producing as less constrains and context swaps as possible, making the program executing time be longer than the memory access latency at every stage and so on.