Slashdot Mirror
Introducing Probability into Chip Design
prostoalex writes "The August issue of Intel Developer Update has an interview with Shekhar Borkar, Intel Fellow and Director of Circuit Research at Intel Corp. talking about the future of microprocessor design and what goes on inside Intel Labs. Borkar tells why we need even faster processors and how probability will make its way into future chip designs - "It's like the shift from Newtonian mechanics to quantum mechanics. We will shift from the deterministic designs of today to probabilistic and statistical designs of the future.""
...back in the heady days of Concurrent Computer their top-of-the-line 3280 processor has "usual branch" instructions. The compiler could use the usual branch instructions to provide hints about the probability of the branch being taken to the processor. In a loop, for instance, you'd use a "usual branch not equal" (UBNE) instruction to send execution back to the top. This would indicate to the processor that it should preemptively invalidaate the cache and pipeline.
I'm sure many mainstream processors have this now, but it's funny to think that CCUR had this technology in the late 1980's.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.