MULTICORE PROCESSOR

Outline Over view Design Performance Advantages and disadvantages Examples Conclusion Bibliography

Multicore Processor Overview

A multi-core processor is composed of two or more independent cores. One can describe it as an integrated circuit which has two or more individual processors 

Each core has it’s own complete set of resources, and may share the on-die cache layers

Windows Task Manager

Core 1

Core 2

Why Using Multicore ProcessorDrawbacks of Unicore Processors

Difficult to make single-core clock frequencies even higher.Many new applications are multithreadedDeeply pipelined circuits :Heat problemsSpeed of light problemsDifficult design and verification

Large design teams necessary

Server farms need expensive air-conditioning

MOORE’S LAW

Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware. The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years.he trend has continued for more than half a century and is not expected to stop until 2015 or later.

DESIGNSingle-core CPU Chip

CPU chip

bus interface

ALU

register file The

single core

System bus

Multi-core architectureReplicate multiple processor cores on single die

ALU

ALU

ALU

ALU

Bus interface

Register file

Register file

Register file

Register file

Multi-core CPU chip

Core 2

Core 1

Core 3

Core 4

Multi-Core Processor Architecture of AMD

Architecture of Dual-Core Intel Processor

Two physical core in a packageEach with it’s own execution resourcesEach with it’s own L1 cacheBoth cores share the L2 cacheTruly parallel multi-tasking and threaded execution. Increased throughput..

Multi-core CPU chip

core1

core2

core3

core4

Cores run in parallel

core1

core2

core3

core4

thread1

thread2

thread3

thread4

Within each core, threads are time-sliced (just like on a uniprocessor)

core1

core2

core3

core4

Several threads

Several threadsSeveral threadsSeveral threads

Performance