symmetric multiprocessor (SMP)

Symmetric Multiprocessor (SMP) is a bus architecture of multi-core processors. In this architecture, the diverse processor cores of multi-core processors are connected symmetrically via the SMP bus and thus ensure an even load distribution, which is achieved with a load distribution algorithm over several identical processors.

In Symmetric Multiprocessors, the individual processors share the operating system and the common address space of the main memory. The processors can thus access the same physical address. In the SMP concept, the operating system can assign a process to the processor that is currently idle. The operating system has sole control over all processors. The advantage of the SMP concept is that it can be expanded to include additional central processing units( CPU) without much effort. The operating systemsUnix and Windows support symmetric multiprocessing by default.

The data rates of symmetric multiprocessing are several hundred gigabytes per second( GB/s) up to several terabytes per second( TB/s) with modern processors.