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Multi-core: the next generation

Even before consumers shift to existing multi-core technology, vendors are readying their multi-core arsenal to meet tomorrow’s needs. By Neeraj Gandhi

Processors with two cores have been around for quite some time now. Quad cores are in and are already making waves, at least in the enterprise segment (if not on the desktop). However, that is not stopping vendors from increasing the number of cores on a chip. Call it innovative thinking or pure business strategy, vendors are going full throttle to increase the number of cores on future processors to provide a combination of energy efficiency along with flexibility and processing throughput for upcoming applications.

These multi-core processors can be expected to showcase high degrees of interconnectivity, virtualization, security, hardware acceleration, and, most of all, high performance. Performance is after all the biggest motivator in the development of these processors. With increased adoption of new and heavy applications and a rise in network-based computing, the need for multi-core processors, which are capable of handling multiple threads, has come to the fore.

“The increasing gap between processor speed and memory access is widening. Multi-core processors can provide a great deal of help in bridging this gap,” said Ashish Khushu, Director- Systems Practice, Sun Microsystems.

Besides, the need for multitasking also contributes in a large extent to the development of multi-core chips. Whether it’s servers, desktops or notebooks, users are doing multiple tasks and running several applications with some running in the background. Performing all these tasks in a serial manner is time consuming and strains the resources of a uniprocessor. “For completing multiple and compute intensive tasks in parallel, we need a processor which should be able to handle multiple threads. This has driven us to develop high-end, multi-core processors,” said Rajesh Gupta, Director - Sales & Marketing Group for Intel South Asia.

Focus 2008-09

The last two years have witnessed changes, innovation, and the introduction of a whole new platform of multi-core processors with more than two cores. Amid these processors gaining acceptance and acquiring market share, vendors have already started laying down their plans for the next calendar year. The stage is set for 2008-09, and its time to get, set and go.

IBM is fully focused on squeezing better performance from processors. The company launched the Power6 in May 2007 in US (the Indian launch is still awaited). In 2008-09 it will roll out the entire P6 range of products including P6 blades that can co-exist within the same blade chassis as Intel blades.

“We expect the Power6 to meet the processing and performance needs [of our customers] till 2009-10. Although we plan to start work on the Power7 next year, it will be introduced only around 2010,” said Jyothi Satyanathan, VP, System p, IBM India/South Asia. Research and development exercises are going on at full swing in IBM labs, and everything is on schedule.

Sun Microsystems on the other hand recently introduced the UltraSPARC T2, its next generation processor and the successor of the UltraSPARC T1. As of now, the company is focusing on increasing the penetration of the T2, and concentrating on establishing a distribution network. As for 2008, Sun intends to remain focused on increasing the number of threads and cores while optimizing performance.

It is expected that Sun will launch Victoria Falls, a processor with 16 cores capable of executing 128 threads, under the SPARC umbrella in 2008. This would most probably be the successor of the T2. It is also expected that the company could also launch a processor codenamed Rock targeted at the enterprise segment in the latter part of 2008.

Meanwhile, Intel started the shift from 65 to 45 nm this month. It launched 45nm process technology based processors (the Penryn range of products) including dual core and quad core Xeon for servers and quad core (Core 2 Extreme) for desktops.

“We plan to launch mainstream 45 nm desktop products (dual core and quad core) in the first quarter of 2008 and 45 nm dual core and quad core processors for notebooks in the second half of the year. In the future, customers can expect multi-core processors top to bottom covering all product segments with a greater number of cores, new architecture and new process technology,” said Gupta. Even before the launch, the company had started seeding 45nm based server products.

Software and hardware challenges

Earlier software and applications were designed keeping in mind that they would be processed by a single processor. When single core processors made way for dual cores, the algorithms, applications and software had to be rewritten, redesigned and rethought of in order to make them compatible with dual core technology. The cycle did not stop there. Today the exponential increase in the number of cores on a single chip is putting tremendous pressure on the software side of the multi-core space.

“At present the available software does not support additional cores. Also, there are serious concerns about the software industry’s ability to effectively harness more than four cores to improve the user experience. It is expected to penetrate less than 1% in a server environment (for quad core and multi-core processors) and a maximum of 50% of the PC environment by 2007 (mainly dual core),” said Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Analyst, Gartner India.

That said, there are also concerns regarding the compatibility of multi-core hardware with existing applications. It can become really taxing for the user if he has to change all applications that have been deployed at his end, to ensure compatibility. “Broadly there are two challenges: compatibility with existing applications, and taking advantage of the new technology. The former corresponds to the compatibility of existing applications with multi-core processors at least for two to three years before an actual change comes about. By doing this we have to keep in mind that all features of the latest technology are utilized to full capacity,” added Saytyanathan.

From the hardware point of view, the thermal envelope and compatible motherboards become key challenges. While developing multi-core processors it is important to keep the thermal envelope lower than that of an equivalent number of single core processors. “Multi-core processors were introduced to improve processor performance without the need to crank up clock speeds and thereby generate ever-increasing quantities of heat. Multi-core processors do not necessarily run any cooler than single-core processors, unless the cores have been significantly redesigned, but the principle is that they run within a similar thermal envelope,” added Chakraborti.

What to expect?

Multi-core chips have pushed the growth and capabilities of microprocessors defying Moore’s law that held sway for three decades. How far this phenomenon will last remains to be seen. “The future with regards to the technology is difficult to predict. Technology is changing at a rapid pace. What needs to be noted here is that this change is dramatic and not incremental. So which technology will come and be commercially viable is difficult to predict,” said Satyanathan.

“The future looks great. With the advent of benchmarks, the adoption of multi-core processors is rising and it is expected to keep on doing so in times to come. There is a lot of innovation happening in the multi-core space which will only help further the cause of multi-core computing,” added Khushu.

Although there seem to be different views on what path multi-core processors will tread, as of now there is a shift in the multi-core space. Instead of adding more gigahertz to the processor, vendors are finding multi-core and multithreaded architectures as a better option to increase performance. “Cores will double at the Moore’s Law rate, replacing gigahertz as the driver of performance,” concluded Chakraborti.

neeraj.gandhi@expressindia.com