The MultiProcessor Specification (MPS) for the x86 architecture

X86 architecture

The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086 CPU. The 8086 was launched in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of Intel's 8-bit based 8080 microprocessor and also introduced segmentation to overcome the 16-bit addressing barrier of such designs...

 is an open standard

Open standard

An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....

 describing enhancements to both operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

s and firmware

Firmware

In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...

, which will allow them to work with x86-compatible processors in a multi-processor

Multiprocessing

Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor and/or the ability to allocate tasks between them...

 configuration.

Version 1.1 of the specification was released on April 11, 1994.
Version 1.4 of the specification was released on July 1, 1995, which added extended configuration tables to improve support for multiple PCI bus configurations and improve expandability.

The MP specification covers Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller

Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller

In computing, an Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller is a more complex Programmable Interrupt Controller than Intel's original types such as the 8259A...

 (APIC) architectures.

The Linux kernel

Linux kernel

The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....

 and FreeBSD

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...

are known to support the Intel MP Specification.

There is a utility called 'mptable' which can be used to examine the MP Spec Table on motherboards.

External links

• http://www.intel.com/design/pentium/datashts/242016.htm
• MPS Specification 1.4 (May 1997)
• http://www.uruk.org/mps/