Intel Has a 48-Core Chip for Smartphones and Tablets

[spartanmk2]

Now if only they could build an Arc Reactor...

 

[sna]

[citation][nom]azraa[/nom]The title is misleading for uninformed people Yeah, I give props to any company cramming that many cores on a single die, its cool from an engineering point of view, but when it comes to performance, no smartphone or tablet OS is able to use that many cores. The limitation now lies on the software aspect.Until there is a way to HANDLE those cores, putting so many on a die is irrelevant, and a feat that has been reached before by both Intel and AMD.[/citation]


then you didnt get it , when you have 48 cores , this means you can make each software use a different core ... this is impossible with today 2 or 4 cores , and as they said each core can run at lower speed if needed saving battery life.

this is not one software divided into threads .. this is each program running has its own CPU and using the exact power needed and the exact speed needed.

it is an interesting idea !!!

I opened my Task manager and I have like 53 processes working right now , you can imagine each run on a cpu alone , or lets say in groups .. but independent ...

 

[devBunny]

Sod the phones. I want this chomping data in my desktop PC.

 

[Camikazi]

[citation][nom]bigdragon[/nom]I so want a 48 core computer. Yay for competition! ARM is making Intel wake up and start coming up with new stuff again.[/citation]
Intel demoed a 48 core CPU about 4 years ago and has been talking about it scaling up to 1000 cores since then, this is nothing new this is just them getting closer to that being released. Oh yeah 2 years before the 48 core CPU they had a prototype 80 core CPU as well, the Intel Tera-scale Computing R&D Program has been doing this for a while now. They are likely targeting phones because of ARM but competing with ARM is not what prompted them to create this in the first place since they were already working on it.

 

[mrmez]

For when you just NEED to do 48 things at once 😛

 

[Guest]

Encrypting an email on my phone, they say, LOL... Yeah, that takes so long on today's ARM CPUs, I really need 48 cores for that, unless of course you send emails with 100MB attachments from your smartphone, and the encryption algo is very parallel.

I think for anything they've described, today's dual core ARM CPUs handle it just fine... This is remiscent of Terascale back around 2007, where they gave fanboys a hard-on with a 64 core CPU with only 200million transistors running at 1 TFlop at 65w on 65nm. Fast forward 5 years, and the first commercial product from the Terascale lineage is on 22nm, consumes like 1000w, has 15x as many transistors, and barely and questionably accomplishes the performance level that the first version allegedly accomplished...

 

[catchercradle]

My first reaction before actually reading the story was, "At last! A smartphone I really can fry an egg on."

On reading it I am left with questions. Is this the best way to reduce power consumption by selectively clocking different cores? I don't know and neither I suspect do many if any posting here. What I suspect will be much more important is further reductions in die size. Unless there is a dramatic improvement in efficiency, battery life is going to be the limiting factor in useful computing power in phones.That and programming efficiency. When I learned to program in algol (a little longer ago than last year) I was allowed a maximum of 16KB to programme in on an Eliott 22000 machine which would have filled the ground floor of where I currently live. Because of the availability of cheap memory, most code written now is inefficient, using far more memory than is needed, just because it is there. A return to memory efficient programming could make a massive difference.

 

[Guest]

The Parallella project by Adapteva and funded on Kickstarter is working towards a 2 ARM core + 64-CORE RISC co processor the Epiphany Multicore Accelerator (16 or 64 cores) .

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone

 

[eddieroolz]

The only software I can imagine that would take advantage of this would be Android, and it will probably still be laggy.

 

[computernerd34]

What about a 48 core desktop CPU? 😉 LOL (The i7 30000x)

 

[cats_Paw]

When are we gonna get those for the desktop PC? I heard like 3 years ago that Intel would have by 2013 64 core processors, and by 2012 32 core. I want those >D.

 

[mrdowntownkiller]

When are we gonna get those for the desktop PC? I heard like 3 years ago that Intel would have by 2013 64 core processors, and by 2012 32 core. I want those >D.

in which planet you will use this 64 cores ??!!

 

[EddieLomax]

All these cores still talk to the same bank of memory, does anyone else see a bottleneck there.

It is possible to get great speed out of multi-core processors, but they need to be coded for specially to avoid bottlenecks (empire for example did their own memory allocation on one of the total war series), for most tasks 1-2 cores will be optimal.

 

[cats_Paw]

I aint going cloud, and ill try to convince others not to. If they stop PC development, ill stop giving them my money.

 

[vider]

I've only read the first page of the comments section on this one and I can say that everyone is wowed by this. They are running this in their lab, in Spain. It is a prototype and with it, Intel will deduct it's own conclusions from this experiment.

Some of these conclusions will end up being implemented in different segments in Intel's line up of products.

I would have to agree with some of the comments that were left on this thread, if these chips have a very advanced power management controller and the possibility to run more than one app on a single processing unit, this might give Intel an edge over the competition.

Realistically speaking, a 16 core central processing unit with some sort of advanced HT technology applied to it and a good power management micro controller coupled too it could prove to be fruitful.

But knowing how Intel operates, I'm not really keen on seeing Intel in that field as it will hurt the masses and slow down the information technology era. Not something I'd like to see, or live trough.

I'm happy to know that AMD is still here, without them in the picture, we would all be at Intel's mercy.

And don't get me wrong, I don't hate Intel. They're doing what any one would do in any field, try to be the dominant entity that moves the world towards what it sees to be fit.

 

[smeezekitty]

48 core sounds inherently inefficient. A simple dual core and a good task scheduling system would probably work better anyway.

A 48 core high power CPU might be useful for super computers but not such a good idea for a smartphone IMO.

 

[smeezekitty]

[citation] A return to memory efficient programming could make a massive difference.[/citation]
Couldn't agree more. Modern software uses ridiculous amounts of memory nowadays.
Whenever I write software I always memory optimize it because I learned programming DOS with a 640k limit.

BTW: The current memory usage on the laptop here is 1.18 gb just with 5 firefox tabs and notepad open.

 

[illLoGiQ]

This idea shortly went up in smoke along with my pants that caught fire after putting a 48 core smartphone in my pocket...who do i send this doctor bill to?

 

[cats_Paw]

Call me when I can play crysis on my phone.

 

[dongbin2696]

48 Cores for Mobiles? Imagine how many cores for PC....

 

[cypeq]

nVidia cards nowadays have up to 2600 cores... it's not they count but architecture that matters. Power hungry tasks like large cores with high frequency you can do only so much in parallel.

 

[ceh4702]

I think Intel has been working on this for quite a while. They have some XEON chips with 30 cores or they are in development to be produced soon. So they have some experience with a lot of cores. The idea is you can do more at a slower speed with more cores or even many threads all at once. This could have some significant advantages to building a really small and really portable gaming system with killer graphics or 3D Gaming. Not to mention sorting a database or excel spreadsheet or running SQL.

 

[ceh4702]

Lets see 128 virtual cores how about an integrated 4k Intel HD4.

 

[dtfernando]

Intel just needs to leap-frog its competitors. It can't offer 8 to 12 cores because near-future products using those are in serious meetings already. The cellphones of tomorrow will become hard-core remote controls capable of hi-def video conferences, streamed movies, deep unattended google search while you sleep, engieering workstation and renderer during family time, cameron dinosaur 3d safari design beyond today's flight simulators, searcher for star or comet to be named after you, in-house pda search and testing of beneficial drugs from millions of plant and animal species, and the list of vast personal challenges that smartphones will handle will keep being born. Cars that can safely handle 1,000 kph are practical even today. But the extremely intelligent roads that can safely handle them are nowhere in sight. People fifty years ago had no useful ideas of consumer appliances available today. What was the best projected demand for a one processor computer in the 1960s?

 

[rundmcarlson]

"48 cores, of course, could open completely opportunities what a smartphone could accomplish."

Umm.....what? Someone should spell/grammar check these for mistakes lol. This sentence makes no sense.