Mentor Embedded Multicore Framework (MEMF) is an add-on item to the standard MEL or Nucleus Software Platforms that allows you to manage processor core usage and inter-core communication in a multi-core, heterogeneous development project.

Semiconductor vendors have for many years provided function specific hardware units in their cores such as GPUs for graphical operations, FPUs for floating point operations, DSP units for signal processing and media processing units for rich-media video/audio applications. This concept is now extended to include applications and real-time control processing units; the applications processor typically handles the core application and communications to the outside world and maybe the device user-interface and typically runs an embedded Linux platform like MEL; the real-time processor typically is dedicated to real-time control aspects of the application or in safety-critical functions, safety-critical code requiring certification or low-power applications where the control processor can operate in a low-power state and wake up the applications processor when needed. The control processor will typically run an RTOS like Nucleus.

Managing the operating systems that run on the cores and their communication is a complex problem to solve; MEMF makes this easy by providing an off-the-shelf framework based on the OpenAMP standard.