14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that researchers are definitely keen on pushing the idea of processors with hundreds and thousands of cores as far as they can, and it seems that working 1,000-core models may be completed sooner than some may expect.
The idea of chips with many cores is not a new one, and while not nearly complete, the technology exists and is being refined.
In fact, not long ago, a certain researcher from the University of Glasgow actually built a 1,000-core chip that is 20 times faster than current desktop computers.
While not nearly as great a leap in performance as one may have hoped, it is still proof that the technology is getting there.
Now, Intel claims that it will take it only several more years to create a 1,000-core SCC-like homogeneous multi-core central processing unit.
To be more specific, the Santa Clara, California-based CPU maker believes, according to an interview with ZDNet UK, that it will reach that level in eight or ten years.
“I came up with that 1000 number by playing a Moore's Law doubling game. If the integration capacity doubles with each generation and a generation is nominally two years, then in four or five doublings from today's 48 cores, we are at 1000,” said Timothy Mattson, who is a principal engineer at Intel's Microprocessor Technology Laboratory,
“So this is really a question of how long do we think our fabs can keep up with Moore's Law. If I've learned anything in my 17+ years at Intel, it's never bet against our fabs.”
AMD and Intel are both trying their best to make many-core chips because the other processing units with over one and a half thousand of processing elements, GPUs that is (graphics processors), can't run operating systems or solve complex problems efficiently.
Regardless, in the end, while it is certain that the technology will be developed, market demand and product strategy will determine whether 1,000-core chips take off.
“Speaking from a technical perspective, I can easily see us using 1000 cores. The issue, however, is really one of product strategy and market demands,:” said Mattson.
“As I said earlier, in the research world where I work, my job is to stay ahead of the curve so our product groups can take the best products to the market, optimised for usage models demanded by consumers.”