Yes, that’s right…a thousand core processor. I had to read that one a couple times myself, but apparently, they’ve done it. And how they got to that point is by using systems that are commonly found in plasma and LCD televisions called Field Programmable Gate Arrays, or FPGAs.
An FPGA is a microchip with a bunch of transistors in it, and what the folks out at the University of Glasgow did was build their own FPGA, wiring up the transistors just how they wanted them and effectively turning it into a CPU with 1000 cores. From Dr. Wim Vanderbauwhede, the project’s leader:
An FPGA is a microchip with a bunch of transistors in it, and what the folks out at the University of Glasgow did was build their own FPGA, wiring up the transistors just how they wanted them and effectively turning it into a CPU with 1000 cores. From Dr. Wim Vanderbauwhede, the project’s leader:
“This is very early proof-of-concept work where we’re trying to demonstrate a convenient way to program FPGAs so that their potential to provide very fast processing power could be used much more widely in future computing and electronics.”Interestingly, Intel was also working on a similar project, though just how much connection the University of Glasgow project had with it is unclear. It actually sounds like the University of Glasgow group may well have beaten Intel to the punch by actually creating the chip while Intel was working on theirs.
Posted in: computor technology
