Technology News
Intel presents 48 core chip
RESEARCHERS from Intel Labs Researchers from Intel, HP and
demonstrated an experimental, 48-core Yahoo’s Open Cirrus collaboration have
Intel processor, or “single-chip cloud already begun porting cloud
computer,” that rethinks many of the applications to this 48 IA core chip
approaches used in today’s designs for using Hadoop distributed applications.
laptops, PCs and servers. This futuristic Intel plans to build 100 or more
chip boasts about 10 to 20 times the experimental chips for use by dozens of
processing engines inside processors. industrial and academic research
The long-term research goal is to collaborators around the world with the
add scaling features that spur entirely goal of developing new software
new software applications and human- applications and programming models
machine interfaces. The company plans for future many-core processors.
to engage industry and academia next “Microsoft is partnering with Intel
year by sharing 100 or more of these to explore new hardware and software
experimental chips for hands-on and massive datasets in parallel. Intel’s architectures supporting next-
research in developing new software new chip uses a similar approach, yet all generation client plus cloud
applications and programming models. the computers and networks are applications,” said Dan Reed,
This prototype contains 48 fully integrated on a single piece of 45nm, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of
programmable Intel processing cores, high-k metal-gate silicon about the size Extreme Computing.
the most ever on a single silicon chip. It of a postage stamp. The chip is the latest achievement
also includes an on-chip network for “With a chip like this, you could from Intel’s Tera-scale Computing
sharing information and power imagine a cloud data centre of the Research Program, aimed at breaking
management techniques that allow all future which will be an order of barriers to scaling future chips to 10s-
48 cores to operate efficiently at as magnitude more energy efficient than 100s of cores. It was co-created by Intel
little as 25 watts, or at 125 watts when what exists today, saving significant Labs at its Bangalore (India),
8
running at maximum performance. resources on space and power costs,” Braunschweig (Germany) and Hillsboro,
Intel plans to understand how to said Justin Rattner, head of Intel Labs Ore. (U.S.) research centres. Details on
www
schedule and coordinate the many and Intel’s Chief Technology Officer. the chip’s architecture and circuits are
.eur cores of this experimental chip for its The chip features a high-speed scheduled to be published in February.
oasiasemiconductor
future mainstream chips. For example, network between cores to efficiently We’re very excited about Intel’s
future laptops with processing share information and data. This Single-chip Cloud Computer. In the
capability of this magnitude could have improves communication performance Barrelfish project we are designing OS
“vision” in the same way a human can and energy efficiency since data packets architectures for future multicore and
see objects and motion as it happens only have to move millimetres instead manycore systems. The chip’s memory
and with high accuracy. of tens of meters to another system. system and message passing support
.com
Imagine, for example, someday Application software can use this are a great fit for us, and it’s an ideal
interacting with a computer for a virtual network to pass information directly vehicle for us to test and validate our
dance lesson or on-line shopping that between cooperating cores in a matter ideas.” said Prof. Timothy Roscoe of
square4
Issue VIII 2009
uses a future laptop’s 3-D camera and of microseconds, reducing the need to ETH Zurich
display to show you a “mirror” of access data in slower off-chip system “The Single-chip Cloud Computer
yourself wearing the clothes you are memory. Applications can also manage is an exciting platform for data centre
interested in.This kind of interaction exactly which cores are to be used for a research because the combination of
could eliminate the need of keyboards, given task at a given time, matching the fine-grained voltage and frequency
remote controls or joysticks for gaming. performance and energy needs to the control, together with the ability to shut
Intel Labs has nicknamed this test demands of each. off entire zones of the processor, means
chip a “single-chip cloud computer” Related tasks can be executed on that we can accurately investigate the
because it resembles the organization nearby cores, even passing results balance between computation, memory,
of data centres used to create a directly from one to the next as in an and I/O. The chip’s massive parallelism
“cloud” of computing resources over assembly line to maximize overall gives us the ability to investigate, today,
the Internet, a notion of delivering such performance. In addition, this software the degree of parallelism that will be
services as online banking, social control is extended with the ability to needed from applications five years
networking and online stores to millions manage voltage and clock speed. Cores down the line to make the best use of
of users. Cloud data centres are can be turned on and off or change emerging many-core platforms.”
comprised of tens to thousands of their performance levels, continuously commented David Andersen, assistant
computers connected by a physically adapting to use the minimum energy professor of Computer Science at
cabled network, distributing large tasks needed at a given moment. Carnegie Mellon University
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