Slashdot Mirror
ARM Unveils One-chip SMP Multiprocessor Core
An anonymous reader writes "ARM Ltd. will unveil a unique multi-processor core technology, capable of up to 4-way cache coherent symmetric multi-processing (SMP) running Linux, this week at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose, Calif.. The "synthesizable multiprocessor" core -- a first for ARM -- is the result of a partnership with NEC Electronics announced last October, and is based on ARM's ARMv6 architecture.
ARM says its new "MPCore" multiprocessor core can be configured to contain between one and four processors delivering up to 2600 Dhrystone MIPS of aggregate performance, based on clock rates between 335 and 550 MHz."
Have you never heard of Multi threading?
On a WorkStation, I would agree with you, but on any server with thread optimised applications, more threads = more power...
Once again, People think WorkStation, for things not designed for the WorkStation market
A lower core clock can save you a lot... bot financial and in energy. Raising the clock rate on a chip will increase its energy usage exponentially.
If the problems you want to solve are parallel enough why not?
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I think the one thing that we're all waiting for is the introduction of on-chip system memory. Currently, the cache of a high-performance processor consumes more than half of the chip area because the penalty for a cache miss is so large. For decades now, memory frequency scaling has lagged that of the microprocessor. Although there has been some great strides recently, latency is still rearing its ugly head. External DRAM is too electrically distant to remain at the heart of any high-performance system.
Once we get processor and memory combined, we'll see performance increasing by several orders of magnatude. Processor architecture will matter even less, since emulation of *any* architecture will become trivial in terms of available processing speed. Your Thumb-like prediction will most certainly pan out to some magnatude.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Just the other day I was thinking about "Massively Multiprocessor" ARM computer. It came to me after reading about cluster of VIA low-power computers.
;)
So, ARM are even lower power, they are designed quite correctly from the ground up[1] and the only thing that's missing is FPU. But the computer with 100 ARM CPUs would run faster than any ix86 today and probably would consume less power than the latest P4/K7/K8.
Give me for 64 proc (*4 cores per proc, so 256 proc) Linux machine anytime
Robert
[1] Anyone who knows internals of today ix86 processor from any vendor knows what a mess is it in order to use today's technology with ancient ISA like ix86.
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Alas, they were not "PC-compatible" and at a certain time the Intel/AMD clones with Linux became much more attractive.
Are you talking Sharp Zaurus? I'm eyeing one (If I could order them in the Netherlands...)extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}