Intel just introduced the first version of its processor cores with 48 programmable.

An impressive smart

With 1.3 billion transistors and appointed CSC (Single-chip Computer Cloud, France's called Intel computer chip "virtual"), the processor follows the Polaris had 80 cores (see "Intel processors, 80 cores 2 TeraFLOPS! "). It is the first project Tera-scale power to run x86 applications and has been shown under Windows and Linux or running Visual Studio.

The main difference between the CSC and a standard processor is managing the cache is not coherent. The data are not synchronized between cores, as the case may be in Intel's Larrabee. Otherwise, the chip is rather conventional. It has a system of power management that turns off unused cores and a system of communication between cores with a throughput of 64 Gb / s. The chip, which consists of 24 dual core processors placed side by side, has a TDP that can go from 25 W to 150 W and is engraved in 45nm. The four memory controllers can manage up to 64 GB.

Modernizing programming

The cores are relatively inefficient and are closer to the Atom as Nehalem. Intel does not market the CSC, but will only produce a hundred that will be offered to partners, schools and universities such as Microsoft or the ETH Zurich. The aim is to promote research and help programmers to better understand how to have the programming can optimize applications for such a chip. The founder of Santa Clara would first like to prepare the future by providing a processor that attempts to simulate the future of computing.

According to Intel, the future processors through the multiplication of hearts, as explained by its chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, who wonders if we can "replace an existing rack full of equipment with one or more highly multicore processors, such the CSC.