Programmable Processor Chip Technology

The Teraflops processor is about the size of a human fingernail.

The first programmable processor was introduced by Intel in 2007. The processor is known as Teraflops because it can execute approximately one trillion (Tera) floating point operations per second (flops).

Tera-Scale Computing

The Teraflops processor is part of Intel's Tera-scale Computing research program. Tera-scale computing involves trillions of calculations per second. According to Gizmag, Tera-scale computing was first achieved in 1996 with the ASCI Red Supercomputer which had a footprint of more than 2,000 square feet and consumed more than 500 kilowatts of electricity. This computer required around 10,000 Pentium Processors.

Multiple Cores

The Teraflops processor is a single processor with 80 cores. Each processor core has two floating point engines, also known as math coprocessors. These processors all work simultaneously.

Power Consumption

While delivering Tera-scale computing, the Teraflops processor consumes only 62 watts of power, which is less than the typical single-core processor.

Availability

The Teraflops processor is not currently available for purchase. However, Intel expects to market a similar chip by 2012.

References

• Intel Research: Teraflops Research Chip
• Gizmag: World's First Programmable Processor to deliver Teraflops performance with energy efficiency
• Team XBox News: Intel Unveils 80 Core Programmable Processor
• EE Times: Intel tips teraflops programmable processor

Resources

• Intel Technology Journal: Tera-Scale Computing