Designer puts 96 cores on single chip

No_Style · Oct 6, 2004, 05:13 PM

Chip-designer ClearSpeed has put 96 computing cores onto a single semiconductor, as the race to secure a niche in the emerging market for co-processors heats up.

Code-named Avebury, the company's upcoming chip contains 96 separate internal units tuned for doing particular types of math problems. Inserted into Intel- or Advanced Micro Device-based servers, Avebury will handle the repetitive, computational grunt work involved in preparing a study on how a single protein will react with thousands of others or a financial analysis that charts how slight changes in a stock portfolio could affect a person's financial position over the course of several years.

"This allows for local, high-performance computing, so technical users can complete their work on a small cluster or their desktop," said David Hoff, director of technical marketing at ClearSpeed, which has offices in Los Gatos, Calif., and Bristol, England.

Chips that help a computer's main microprocessors perform specific types of math problems are becoming a big business once again, decades after companies like Intel integrated these chips into main microprocessors to cut costs.

RIKEN, an anglicized acronym for Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, revealed details earlier this summer about a chip called MDGrape 3 that can perform a quadrillion operations per second. That's more than existing supercomputers, although the MDGrape 3 can only handle certain type of functions.

Azul Systems, meanwhile, recently announced it is concocting a chip with four to 16 processing cores for accelerating Java applications.
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Read More/Source: C|Net Tech News

Oct 6, 2004, 05:13 PM	#1
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Designer puts 96 cores on single chip Chip-designer ClearSpeed has put 96 computing cores onto a single semiconductor, as the race to secure a niche in the emerging market for co-processors heats up. Code-named Avebury, the company's upcoming chip contains 96 separate internal units tuned for doing particular types of math problems. Inserted into Intel- or Advanced Micro Device-based servers, Avebury will handle the repetitive, computational grunt work involved in preparing a study on how a single protein will react with thousands of others or a financial analysis that charts how slight changes in a stock portfolio could affect a person's financial position over the course of several years. "This allows for local, high-performance computing, so technical users can complete their work on a small cluster or their desktop," said David Hoff, director of technical marketing at ClearSpeed, which has offices in Los Gatos, Calif., and Bristol, England. Chips that help a computer's main microprocessors perform specific types of math problems are becoming a big business once again, decades after companies like Intel integrated these chips into main microprocessors to cut costs. RIKEN, an anglicized acronym for Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, revealed details earlier this summer about a chip called MDGrape 3 that can perform a quadrillion operations per second. That's more than existing supercomputers, although the MDGrape 3 can only handle certain type of functions. Azul Systems, meanwhile, recently announced it is concocting a chip with four to 16 processing cores for accelerating Java applications. _______________ Read More/Source: C\|Net Tech News __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here