Symmetric Multiprocessor System
A Symmetric Multiprocessor System is a multiprocessor system with centralized shared memory called Main Memory (MM) operating under a single operating system with two or more homogeneous processors—–i.e., it is not a heterogeneous computing system.[1][2]
More precisely a SMP is a tightly coupled multiprocessor system with a pool of homogeneous processors running independently, each processor executing different programs and working on different data and with capability of sharing common resources (memory, I/O device, interrupt system, etc) and connected using a system bus or a crossbar.
Usually each processor has an associated private high-speed memory known as cache memory (or cache) to speed-up the MM data access and to reduce the system bus traffic.
Sometimes the term Symmetric Multiprocessor is confused with the term Symmetric multiprocessing.
While multiprocessing is a type of "processing" in which two or more processors work together to "process more than one program simultaneously", the term multiprocessor refers to the hardware architecture that allows multiprocessing.[3][4]
