Scholar Akash Asbro has designed a Microchip ATmega328P-based growth board with a distinction: it has 4 cores operating facet by facet, as an alternative of the standard one.
“The Quad-Core AVR Microcontroller Board is a custom-designed embedded platform that integrates 4 ATmega328P chips to allow true hardware-level multitasking,” Asbro explains of his creation. “Designed for robotics, IoT [Internet of Things], and real-time automation methods, it includes a modular structure with a {custom} job allocation library that allows every core to deal with devoted duties independently — bringing multi-core efficiency to the low-cost, low-power microcontroller house.”
The Quad-C brings one thing a bit normal to AVR growth: quad-core processing capabilities. (đź“·: Akash Asbro)
Multi-core processing is nothing new: application-class processors have provided a number of cores — and, earlier than that, a number of bodily processors on a single motherboard — for many years, and plenty of fashionable microcontrollers do the identical. Generally the cores are used really independently, whereas different occasions they function in “lockstep” — which means they carry out the identical duties on the identical time, and if their outcomes differ throw an error for functions the place useful security is crucial.
Asbro’s board would not embody a contemporary multi-core microcontroller, although, however 4 bodily ATmega328P cores — succesful, like traditional multi-processor computer systems, of working collectively. “Quad-C achieves true parallelism by distributing duties throughout impartial processors,” Asbro says. “Every microcontroller may be assigned devoted roles — corresponding to sensor information acquisition, motor management, or wi-fi communication — making certain higher responsiveness and modular design.”
A {custom} library handles job distribution, with its creator promising “true parallelism” and dynamic job distribution. (đź“·: Akash Asbro)
“The Quad-C board depends on an unique {custom} job allocation library as its foremost system element,” Asbro continues. “The personalized job allocation library allows microcontrollers to distribute duties dynamically amongst one another which optimizes the processing useful resource utilization. By means of the system builders have the power to distribute particular person duties throughout MCUs which results in each parallel processing and enhanced efficiency when dealing with real-time functions.”
The undertaking is documented in full, with supply code, schematics, and Gerber recordsdata, on Hackaday.io.
