Intel has announced details of a new generation of chips designed to handle increasingly complex and diverse requirements.
The “multi-core” processor technology, codenamed “Larrabee” will be showcased at an upcoming industry conference in Los Angeles.
By dividing tasks between cores, these multi-core chips will be able to cut energy use and heat while speeding performance, using a type of parallel processing.
Intel and AMD currently sell chips with two or four “cores,” but the new Intel chips (pencilled for release in 2009 or 2010) will have 16 to 48 cores and will be tailored for handling computer game graphics. The chips will also accomomodate the increasingly complex, ‘multi-tasking’ type approach that see users running many desktop apps at once.
Intel say that the major task for software developers now will be to make full use of the available processing power and multi-threading capabilities. Predicted research breakthroughs include voice recognition software so accurate it could be used to record witness testimony in courtroom proceedings.
Intel expects Larrabee “to kick start an industry-wide effort to create and optimise software for the dozens, hundreds and thousands of cores expected to power future computers.”
Larrabee’s initial foray into the multi-billion dollar computer graphics market will put it in an arena dominated by Nvidia and AMD, which both reportedly plan to market chips with hundreds of cores.
See more at:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20080804fact.htm?iid=pr1_releasepri_20080804fact
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