Experimental chip could reshape the way pcs are built

The experimental 48core Intel processor – or 'single chip cloud computer' takes a different stance to traditional approaches to designs for laptops, pcs and servers, while the long term research goal is to add high level scaling features to future computers that spur new software applications and human/machine interfaces. Intel plans to share 100 or more of the experimental chips to industry and academia for hands on research in developing new software applications and programming models. The prototype contains 48 programmable Intel processing cores, which the company says is the most ever on a single silicon chip. It also includes a high speed on chip network for sharing information along with newly invented power management techniques that allow all 48 cores to operate extremely energy efficiently at as little as 25W, or at 125W when running at maximum performance. Intel's researchers believe that the processing capability of the experimental chip could one day mean laptops could have 'vision' in the same way a human can see objects and motion as it happens and with high accuracy. Such interaction could eliminate the need of keyboards, remote controls or joysticks for gaming. Some researchers even claim that computers may be able to read brain waves, so simply thinking about a command, such as dictating words, would happen without speaking. Justin Rattner, head of Intel Labs and Intel's chief technology officer, said: "With a chip like this, you could imagine a cloud data centre of the future which will be an order of magnitude more energy efficient than what exists today, saving significant resources on space and power costs. Over time, I expect these advanced concepts to find their way into mainstream devices, just as advanced automotive technology such as electronic engine control, air bags and antilock braking eventually found their way into all cars." The concept chip features a high speed network between cores to efficiently share information and data. According to Intel, this technique gives 'significant improvement' in communication performance and energy efficiency over today's data centre model, since data packets only have to move millimetres on chip instead of tens of metres to another computer system.