Futuristic Intel chip could reshape how computers are built

New Delhi: A new concept chip from Intel Labs is aimed at scaling on-chip performance, communication and power consumption for decades to come.

Researchers from Intel Labs demonstrated the experimental, 48-core Intel processor, or ''single-chip cloud computer,'' that rethinks many of the approaches used in today's designs for laptops, PCs and servers.

This futuristic chip boasts about 10 to 20 times the processing engines inside most Intel Core-branded processors.

''The single-chip cloud computer was designed as a concept vehicle for parallel software research," says Vasantha Erraguntla, senior engineering manager Intel Labs India.

Explaining further, Erraguntla says, "We believe this is an ideal research platform to help accelerate many-core software research and advanced development. Coming on the heels of the successful 80-core Teraflop processor, we knew we had to get this one right on the first go. The complexity of this chip is multi-fold, with a much larger die size, system level complexities and challenges of 45nm physical design. The belief of the global team in our capabilities and the dedication displayed by the team at the Bangalore labs enabled us to build this research prototype successfully and take us yet another step forward in the Tera-scale journey''.

The long-term research goal is to add incredible scaling features to future computers that spur entirely new software applications and human-machine interfaces. The company plans to engage industry and academia next year by sharing 100 or more of these experimental chips for hands-on research in developing new software applications and programming models.