WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Intel Corp. announced
that it has designed a computer chip prototype which contains as much as 80
cores, performing more than a trillion calculations per second, U.S. media
reported on Monday.
The world's biggest chipmaker said the unprecedented
programmable computer processor, not larger than a fingernail, can conduct about
a trillion calculations per second, a "teraflop." However, it accomplishes this
unbelievable performance with just 62 watts of power when the chip is running at
a frequency of 3.16 gigahertz.
The super multi-core processor can deliver
"supercomputer-like"performance to home computers and handheld devices. "Our
researchers have achieved a wonderful and key milestone in terms of being able
to drive multi-core and parallel computing performance forward," said Intel
chief technology officer Justin Rattner at an IT annual meeting in San
Francisco.
A similarly powerful supercomputer at the U.S Sandia
National Laboratories, built by Intel in 1996, took up more than 180 square
meters, used nearly 10,000 Pentium Pro processors, and consumed more than 500
kilowatts of electricity. Intel's new research chip achieves the exact same
performance, but on one multi-core chip.
Although Intel's latest super-chip is still in the
research phase, but it marks an important breakthrough for an industry obsessed
with obtaining the highest amount of performance for the lowest energy
consumption.
Intel is emphasizing that the final version of the
processor --which will have 100 million transistors -- will be different from
the prototype and will take from three to eight years to reach themarket.
The chip could, in future, let ordinary users access
such advanced techniques on their computers as speech recognition,
ultra-realistic gaming and artificial intelligence.
