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Multi-core processor

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Diagram of an Intel Core 2 dual core processor, with CPU-local Level 1 caches, and a shared, on-die Level 2 cache.
AMD X2 3600 dual core processor

A multi-core microprocessor is one that combines two or more independent processors into a single package, often a single integrated circuit (IC). A dual-core device contains two independent microprocessors. In general, multi-core microprocessors allow a computing device to exhibit some form of thread-level parallelism (TLP) without including multiple microprocessors in separate physical packages. This form of TLP is often known as chip-level multiprocessing

Terminology

There is some discrepancy in the semantics by which the terms "multi-core" and "dual-core" are defined. Most commonly they are used to refer to some sort of central processing unit (CPU), but are sometimes also applied to DSPs and SoCs. Additionally, some use these terms only to refer to multi-core microprocessors that are manufactured on the same integrated circuit die. These persons generally prefer to refer to separate microprocessor dies in the same package by another name, such as "multi-chip module", "double core", or even "twin core". This article uses both the terms "multi-core" and "dual-core" to reference microelectronic CPUs manufactured on the same integrated circuit, unless otherwise noted.


Hardware trend

  • Multi-core to many-core: from dual-, quad-, eight-core to tens or even hundreds of cores.
  • Mixed with simultaneous multithreading or hyperthreading
  • Heterogeneous: special purpose processors cores in addition to general purpose cores for higher efficiency in processing multimedia, recognition and networking applications
  • Energy-efficiency: focus on performance-per-watt with advanced fine-grain or ultra fine-grain power management and dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS)
  • Hardware-assisted platform virtualization
  • Memory-on-chip


Commercial examples

  • International Business Machines (IBM)'s POWER4, first Dual-Core module processor released in 2000.
  • IBM's POWER5 dual-core chip is now in production, and the company has a PowerPC 970MP dual-core processor in production that was used in the Apple Power Mac G5.
  • Cradle Technologies multi-core DSP processor (CT3400, CT3600)
  • Broadcom SiByte (SB1250, SB1255, SB1455)
  • PA-RISC (PA-8800)
  • Sun Microsystems
  • AMD released its dual-core Opteron server/workstation processors on 22 April 2005, and its dual-core desktop processors, the Athlon 64 X2 family, were released on 31 May 2005. AMD have also recently released the FX-60, FX-62 and FX-64 for high performance desktops, and Turion 64 X2 for laptops.
  • Intel is currently shipping Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, and Xeon (x1xx series) microprocessors with dual-core technology. These chips, based on the Pentium M (Core Duo) and Core (Core 2 Duo and Xeon) replaced the earlier Pentium D chips, which were based on the Pentium 4. Intel also markets quad-core versions of the Core 2 chip, called the Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Extreme.
  • Motorola/Freescale has dual-core ICs based on the PowerPC e500 core, and e600 and e700 cores in development.
  • Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console uses a triple core PowerPC microprocessor.
  • The Cell processor, in PlayStation 3 is a 8 core design, although theoretically, Cells with more than 8 cores can be produced.
  • Raza Microelectronics' XLR processor has eight MIPS cores.
  • Cavium Networks' Octeon processor has 16 MIPS cores.
  • Commendo Voyager software service is a multi-core design running on Intel dual-core processors.
  • ARM MPCore is a fully synthesizable multicore container for ARM9 and ARM11 processor cores, intended for high-performance embedded and entertainment applications.
  • Intel has developed an 80-core processor prototype that has each core running at 3.16GHz, which it says will be released within the next five years.[1]

Quad-core processors are announced by Intel[2] to be produced in 2006 and AMD[3] for 2007.

Notes

  1. ^ Digital signal processors, DSPs, have utilized dual-core architectures for much longer than high-end general purpose processors. A typical example of a DSP-specific implementation would be a combination of a RISC CPU and a DSP MPU. This allows for the design of products that require a general purpose processor for user interfaces and a DSP for real-time data processing; this type of design is suited to e.g. mobile phones.
  2. ^ Two types of operating systems are able to utilize a dual-CPU multiprocessor: partitioned multiprocessing and symmetric multiprocessing (SMP). In a partitioned architecture, each CPU boots into separate segments of physical memory and operate independently; in an SMP OS, processors work in a shared space, executing threads within the OS independently.

See also

References

  1. ^ 80-core prototype from Intel
  2. ^ Quad-cores from Intel
  3. ^ Quad-cores from AMD
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