Multi-core chips are alive and well… but programmers have a lot of work to do (Image: Intel)
“Our researchers have achieved a wonderful and key milestone.” So said Intel’s chief technology officer Justin Rattner last month, when the company unveiled a prototype chip equipped with 80 microprocessors, or “cores”, each capable of handling a separate task independently of the others.
A milestone it certainly is. Although the chip maker has no plans to release this “supercomputer-on-a-chip” as a commercial product, it is clear that gains in computing performance will in future be made by increasing the number of cores. The…
