Multi-core Processor

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Multi-core Processor

• Jia Yao
• ECE Dep. Auburn University

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What is a multi-core processor ?

• A processing system composed of two or more
  independent cores, which facilitates simultaneous
  managing of activities.

• Dual-core and quad-core processor
• High performance without driving up power
  consumption

CPU1 and L1 Cache
CPU2 and L1 Cache
L2 Cache
Main Memory
Dual-core Architecture
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Multi-core processor history

• Motivated by increasing operating frequency,
  which leads to increasing gap between processor
  and memory speeds, larger cache, higher power
  consumption.
• The worlds first multi-core processor is
  Power4 released by IBM in 2001.

IBM Power4, Power5, Power6, PowerPC
AMD Athlon, Opteron, Phenom
Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Xeon
Nvidia Geforce9, Geforce200
Sun microsystem MARJC, UltraSPARC
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Advantages ?
CPU
CPU1
CPU2
Single-core Large tasks running simultaneously
slow down
Dual-core Large tasks can be processed in
separate CPUs
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How does multi-core processor work?

• Significant improvement on cache (bus) snooping
• Signals between different CPUs travel shorter
  distance, which allows more date sent in one
  period, less signal degradation, does not need to
  sent data repeatedly as often

CPU1 and L1 Cache
CPU2 and L1 Cache
L2 Cache
Main Memory
1 1 2? Not exactly, 111.5
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Future Development

• Low Power Design
• power consumption doubles with each doubling
  of operating frequency
• Software support
• Such like more intelligent compiler which is
  capable of sending balanced load of instructions
  to individual cores.

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Reference

• 1 http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core
• 2http//www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps2q
  05-20050103-Fruehe.pdf
• 3http//multicore.amd.com/Resources/33211A_Multi
  -Core_WP_en.pdf
• 4 http//www.intel.com/multi-core
• 5 http//www.bitpipe.com/tlist/Multi-core-Proces
  sor-Architecture.html