Slashdot Mirror
Reverse Multithreading CPUs
microbee writes "The register is reporting that AMD is researching a new CPU technology called 'reverse multithreading', which essentially does the opposite of hyperthreading in that it presents multiple cores to the OS as a single-core processor." From the article: "The technology is aimed at the next architecture after K8, according to a purported company mole cited by French-language site x86 Secret. It's well known that two CPUs - whether two separate processors or two cores on the same die - don't generate, clock for clock, double the performance of a single CPU. However, by making the CPU once again appear as a single logical processor, AMD is claimed to believe it may be able to double the single-chip performance with a two-core chip or provide quadruple the performance with a quad-core processor."
Ha! Too bad we're boycotting the French so this will never see the light of day!
That is a Godless(tm) society, unlike the U S of A.
The cores thread YOU!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Too late. I've already patented it.
FanFictionRecs.net
Oooooh, wow... AMD invents multi-processor system. News at 11.
Seriously, it doesn't seem like that much superscience...
- You have an array of workhorse processors.
- You have a Command and Control chip
- The C&C chip takes incoming jobs, breaks down those jobs into little bits, sends them to the processors, and sends the completed task back to the OS.
Hmmm... this sounds like... multiprocessor systems? distributed computing? SETI@HOME?
Of course, the idea of putting it in one chip instead of several is obviously patentable, so we can all count on getting screwed any time now.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
To heck with powering millions of individual computers. Just make a million-core chip and wire them all up like this and you'll have one computer with the power of millions less all that nasty overhead of having to run an OS on all of the other computers. Power to the people!