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Abstract — This paper focuses on mastering the automatic ar-chitecture synthesis and application mapping for heterogeneous massively-parallel MPSoCs based on customizable application-specific instruction-set processors (ASIPs). It presents an over-view of the research being currently performed in the scope of the European project ASAM (Architecture Synthesis and Appli-cation Mapping) of the ARTEMIS program. The paper briefly presents the results of our analysis of the main problems to be solved and challenges to be faced in the design of such heteroge-neous MPSoCs. It explains which system, design, and electronic design automation (EDA) concepts seem to be adequate to resolve the problems and address the challenges. Finally, it introduces and briefly discusses the design-flow and its main stages pro-posed by the ASAM project consortium to enable an effective and efficient solution of these problems. Index Terms — embedded systems, heterogeneous multi-processor system-on-chip (MPSoC), customizable ASIPs, archi-tecture synthesis, MPSoC and ASIP design automation; I