Re: Intel comming out with a 16 core Nehalem family.


"Zootal" <giganews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:UuKdnW1hzd2dpdbVnZ2dnUVZ_gSdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That sounds great for servers and other heavy multitasking, but
"part of the OS embedded into the app" doesn't make any sense.
An OS function by definition may be required and used
(potentially) by any or all apps running under a given OS, and
having a function (e.g. print spooling) embedded in an app,
with possibly more than one version of a function existing on the
same system, would be a logistical nightmare for SW developers.


I think that the line between a traditional OS function and the
application is not quite so black and white. If running a specific app is
all a core does, then there is a vague line between the app and the OS,
and certain OS functionality can be embedded into the app. For example,
since the app has exclusive access to the cpu, it could utilize it's own
cpu scheduler running in its own memory space using it's own scheduling
algorithm instead of being dependent on some main OS. If the job of a
certain core is to exclusively talk to certain i/o devices, then the core
would have it's own i/o scheduler running in its own space.

A few weeks ago I saw plans for a 256 core cpu. How do you get 256 cores
to talk to each other, and fast? One researcher I met is working on using
wireless technology, and sticking small antennaes above the cpu. Yeah,
sounds weird, but with that many cores, you have to get pretty exotic and
think outside of the box. Huge multi core cpus won't be anything like what
we are used to today.

Todays technology does not scale up to hundreds of cores. Going massively
multi core is a major paradigm change, and I'm curious as to how we are
going to do it.


Zootal:

I think your analysis is spot on. It is amazing that the speed of an
electron down a piece of silicone or a piece of wire is becoming such a
bottle neck. (What is it, ~1.5" per ns.) I believe in the near future we
will see the integration of laser - optic I/O on our cpu's to improve
communications and throughput between cpu, I/O and whatever.

I especially agree with the dedicated core for specific tasks, such as
speech recognization and synthesization, i/o and any other identifiable
repeatable process. Many will be identified and tailored to a specific core
as you have described.

Do you think that future cpu's will become cubes, one core or more, stacked
ontop of another to conserve in distance between cores for communications?

William


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