14 DAY TRIAL // So far, officially, Intel's currently most powerful server processors, the Xeon 7500 series, have “only” eight cores at the most. This makes AMD, with its Magny-Cours 12-core chips, the current leader in multi-core server processing. What some end-users might not know, however, or may have forgotten, is that the Santa Clara, California-based chip giant is already experimenting with 48-core chips intended for future data-center applications and, especially, supercomputers.
Back in December, Intel released an official video in which it unveiled its plans to create a so-called ‘Single-Chip Cloud Computer,’ which is a just another name for the 48-core superchip that the CPU maker is working on. Based on the 45nm manufacturing process, the unit uses dual-core clusters that work in a power envelope of between 25 W and 125W, a three times better performance per watt compared to previous solutions.
Not only that, but cores can be slowed down or turned off in order to save power, when applications allow it. There was also a mention of high-speed on-chip network, meant to enable easy information sharing and to the reduce memory and communication bottlenecks common to x86 chips.
More recently, according to Fudzilla and a report on InfoWorld, the making of the 48-core may be farther along than one might think. In fact, select researchers that may plan to use the many-core processor in future supercomputers will be receiving the prototype for testing purposes. These fortunate parties will be able to experiment and find out, among other things, how fast a data exchange between cores the special chip topology brings about.
“The 48-core processor's architecture includes improvements that cut memory and communication bottlenecks that affect current x86 chips. For faster data exchange, the chip topology organizes the cores with multiple points to receive and transfer data. Routers between cores facilitate faster data exchange and the architecture is expandable as cores are added. The 48-core chip has 24 small routers between cores,” InfoWorld reports.
The processor, at least for now, is only part of a research project, but Sean Koehl, technology evangelist with Intel Labs, supposedly stated that, while the 48-core itself might not become commercially available, its power efficiency and performance-optimizing features might be implemented in other, future CPUs.