Multi-core processor: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:15, 18 January 2006

Revision as of 12:45, 20 January 2006

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*IBM's [[IBM POWER|POWER5]] dual-core chip is now in production, and the company has a [[PowerPC 970|PowerPC 970MP]] dual-core processor in production and is in use in the Apple PowerMac G5.

* [[PA-RISC]] (PA-8800)

*[[Intel]] released its dual-core desktop [[Pentium D]] [[x86]] [[64-bit]] processors, code-named ''Smithfield'', to [[original equipment manufacturer|OEM]]s on [[12 April]] [[2005]] though they are not true dual cores, simply two dies on the same package. Its dual-core [[Xeon]] processors, code-named ''Paxville'' and ''Dempsey'', are shipping at 3GHz3 GHz. The company is also currently developing dual-core versions of its [[Itanium]] high-end server CPU architecture but there have been many delays.

*[[Advanced Micro Devices|AMD]] released its dual-core [[Opteron]] server/workstation processors on [[22 April]] [[2005]], and its dual-core desktop processors, the [[Athlon 64]] [[Athlon 64 X2|X2]] family, were released on [[31 May]] 2005. AMD have also recently released the [[FX-60]].

*[[Motorola]]/[[Freescale]] has dual-core ICs based on the [[PowerPC]] [[e600]] and [[e700]] cores in development.

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Additionally, for general-purpose processors, much of the motivation for multi-core processors comes from the increasing difficulty of improving processor performance by increasing the operating frequency (frequency-scaling). In order to continue delivering regular performance improvements for general-purpose processors, manufacturers such as [[Intel]] and [[AMD]] have turned to multi-core designs, sacrificing lower manufacturing costs for higher performance in some applications and systems.

It should be noted that while mutlimulti-core architectures are being developed, so are the alternatives. An especially strong contender for established markets is to integrate more peripheral functions into the chip.

===Advantages===