Clark 64 Core CPU

A new processor design may make many-core CPUs a practical reality in the near future, according to research stemming from Maryland's Clark School of Engineering. Professor Uzi Vishkin and his PhD student assistant Xingzhi Wen say they have developed a new management method that overcomes the efficiency roadblocks of today's technology, allowing nearly anyone to write programs that can use many cores at once. The view of the processor from a developer's end is so simple that even local high student schools have been given a prototype to write test programs, the Clark School says.

In its current form, the CPU platform itself is an add-in card that holds 64 processors. Although each core is only clocked at 75MHz, the new parallel technique improves the practical speed as the cores are more efficiently used than they would be with traditional hardware, the school says. Future refinements of the technology could fit as many as 1,000 of these cores into a single chip the size of a fingernail.

The prototype is at the moment being exhibited to various government and private organizations that may choose to develop the many-core CPU into a practical product within the next few years. Costs should be relatively reasonable as Vishkin/Wen design uses standard parts. No name has been given to the technology, which is instead having its name chosen through a contest open to anyone.

By Electronista Staff