Leaping from mega to giga to tera hertz started off being about speed, but then things took a right turn and we now find that computer “performance” is taking on new meaning. Speed and the ability to multitask are what we see when we get a new computer. But just as important — at least to today’s chip designers, software developers and researchers — is efficiency. Doing things faster, more things at the same time and conserving battery life or electricity are the cornerstones of every novel idea that goes into making the most complex things ever created by man…the computer processor.
Here’s a video I shot of my buddy Sean Koehl at Research@Intel Day 2007 as he swiftly describing some crazy complex research Intel is doing to ready the world for a day when computer processors will have 10s to 100s of brain cores in a single chip.
In addition to his five day jobs working in the corporate technology group, Sean is also an editor and contributor to the newly released Intel Reseach blog.
Movin' Ahead 