subject: X86 Architecture There Is Still Room For Development Framework Will Not End War [print this page] x86 architecture there is still room for development
X86 processor architecture has undergone more than 30 years, had to consider whether the way it will one day come to an end. And Intel Said, x86 architecture there is room for development, while competition between the architecture model is also far will not end. Intel chief technology officer JustinRattner
said adaptive architecture is the key to the success of past and future, even though many people usually think that x86 instruction set is immutable. He said that both its own instruction set, or architecture mode, x86 over the years have undergone dramatic changes.
20 when the 90's, x86 repulsed by the MMX and SSE instruction set as a special media processor to accelerate a variety of communication Software Digital needs. Rattner also said that hardware on the Memory Management and improved virtualization support and has been applied to the chip, and gradually improved.
Rattner believes that equally important is the Intel x86 evolution every step of the process are maintained for backward compatibility. Instruction advances in compatibility with their own architecture so widely used x86?? Both from individual users to enterprise users, or from the Notebook To supercomputers.
"Have to understand is, x86 architecture is not a frozen design." University of California, Berkeley professor of computer DavidPatterson "They average 30 years has increased each month, an instruction, the x86 has nearly 500 Article instruction, and each new generation more than they would increase 20 to 100 instructions. compatibility of course is necessary, and constantly adding new things are always inevitable.
Strategic Transformation "Shrink transistors and other components are huge technical challenges, but Intel has already invested a lot of money." Carnegie? Mellon University professor of computer, Intel researcher at the ToddMowry say, the heat problem with the shorter lines issues, the performance of the change can only increase lean chip processor core, rather than increasing its speed. This makes the demand on the hardware performance change as the demand for software. Mowty said research team, the focus now is not to create a perfect single-core, but how to use and manage multiple nuclear.
The success of the most promising solution is the use of software interactions are multi-core chip memory technology will be up in parallel, so you can share data in the case without prejudice retains parallel threads, but without locking or restricted to those data access. It is called "interactive software memory." This is a method solution, a software category, but support for this technology to the x86 hardware can be built in to.
Mowry that constantly add more core processor chip, this solution the only restriction is that software developers use those nuclear capabilities. The biggest obstacle is the idea of change?? Parallel shift from serial thinking ideas.
Rattner is expected in the next five to seven years, each piece of chip in the processor core number will reach several hundred. Since each core has its number of threads, so chip to support the number of concurrent threads may be more than 1000. But he also acknowledges that the world has not many people know how to make good use of up to 1,000 threads.
How will the future x86 What the future will Rattner said Intel's labs in some exciting discoveries, such as for security reasons, x86 architecture to support new hardware will be used to make in the face of attacks get stronger, but he did not elaborate.
He also noted that the next based on x86 architecture Larrabee (Programmable Multi-core) chips will be available with nVIDIA GPUs has been common since the graphics chip counter. For A MD The company ATI components, Rattner said, Larrabee includes a new operation that the operation of visual computing.
He said, and competitors are highly specialized graphics processing unit is different, Larrabee has a greater significance, it is an extension of x86 architecture diversity. "Here, we can do for this durable framework of a new assertion, we can play to the strength of it than people think." He said.
AMD has the same plan. January, AMD said Fusion's call to launch a CPU Joint-GPU chip, as their existing Yi-Lung processor family an extension, and first dual-core Notebook Computer appears.
With VIA processor naming of nanotechnology holds a VIA Technologies Mini-notebook market, and that the future will continue to use high-performance x86 architecture processors occupy the mobile market, but also including Desktops Changes in the market.
Although some new microprocessor architecture and exclusion may emerge to x86 architecture, but Rattner view, x86 Wintel software architecture can still be protected, which in the late 80s of last century to help x86 RISC processor architecture to resolve the threat posed to it. He said: "Unless you can come out you can use a different instruction set to five times performance increase, or the status of x86 architecture will not be affected significantly."
But this does not mean that with the increase in the number of silicon transistors, x86 instruction set will not be applied in new ways. 40 years, silicon transistors has been placed below the surface. Now there is a new technology, they can be installed above the silicon surface. So it is possible to use materials other than silicon to produce transistors, such as energy and have better performance characteristics of the GaAs material. Rattner said: "In a second-generation products (about two to four years), we can not develop on the surface of silicon transistors in the processor, but the processor will produce materials produced many innovations in the next decade."
Although Intel is developing a new transistor-based circuits, but Rattner said Intel chips can only add more in the core, such as quantum and DNA computing services for the development of the processor. He explained: "It really altered the mathematical basis for computing services, but the risk is also high. While they may only be used in very narrow areas of application, not for general-purpose computing services."
