Looking Ahead: 80 Cores
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on September 26, 2006 at 9:25:53 PM
I'll be laughing when I read this news post 5 years from now and comment how we only had 2 core CPUs. Intel is saying 80 cores in 5 years. Now, when will software catch up?
Quote
Intel's work on silicon photonics, including its recent announcement of a silicon laser, could help contribute toward the core-to-core connection challenge. Rattner and Prof. John Bowers of the University of California at Santa Barbara demonstrated Intel's newest breakthrough model of silicon laser, which was constructed using conventional techniques that are better suited to volume manufacturing than older iterations of the laser. Many of the architectural nuances of the 80-core chip can be traced back to earlier research breakthroughs announced at previous IDFs. Connecting chips directly to each other through tiny wires is called Through Silicon Vias, which Intel discussed in 2005. TSV will give the chip an aggregate memory bandwidth of 1 terabyte per second.