The ‘historic shift’ of multi-core chip design… Forget about web 2.0, start thinking about the Tera Era of Computing
Understanding the future of technology is not about seeing ‘trends’ and fads. It is about comprehending real disruption around fundamental shifts in infrastructure and software architecture. That is where we expose and exploit the opportunities and uncertainties of transformational change. The semiconductor industry is poised for several ‘shifts’ – including organic electronics (cheap, low power, ‘ubicomp’ stuff!), silicon photonics (improving backbone of the web for video/3D metaverse worlds) and my favorite: mult-core processor chip design.
For entrepreneurs, it is time to start paying attention to the chorus of software/hardware visionaries who believe that the era of multi-core chips and applications is closer than we might imagine. This computing era of multiple processors on a single chip set– goes far beyond improved speeds and will likely lead to entirely new platforms for computing services… (more on software towards the end of the post!)
For now- think Hardware: (Click below to continue…)
1) In July – Intel demonstrated a prototype 80-core chip that it expects to produce by 2011- and it has its eyes on 512 processor chips beyond that…! [Video blog from Intel’s Research day demon on THz chipset)
[What about AMD? Geeks might also this vlog interview with an AMD technologist who describes ‘native quad core’ vs ‘duct tape’ multichip architecture… It seems ‘memory access’ is their key feature over ‘competitors’ but I remember more than a few integrated memory platforms coming out of Intel labs..! We’ll see… ]
2) This past week Sun Microsystems unveiled its UltraSPARC T2 chipset – and its plans to go full steam into the ‘commodity market of processing power’. Their bet is that the thing ‘attached to the network’ will continue to expand well beyond traditional computer-server systems. They have put up a nice video taping of announcement- that is worth watching for business geeks). Also their Sun Press Release… (8 core; 64 threads…)
[Side note: I am a big fan of Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz - and is ability to understand the dynamics of network participation. (He has a great IT Conversations talk on ‘Age of Participation’ He is a renaissance-style enterprise software visionary… able to see the how human/business potential accelarates in a more open, transparent world…]
3) The other big news story for semiconductors was the announcement by Silicon Valley based (MIT origin) start-up Tilera that it was developing a 64 core chip that ‘can tear through software threads’ ‘providing up to 32 terabits per second of data bandwidth across the whole chip’. (according to The Register article) And Tilera already has customers – with chips expected next year! (read the article for technical specs; and software strategies…)
[Tangent: While I love virtual worlds and 3D landscapes – I think the real wave of opportunity is turning video landscapes into an interactive social space. Figure out a way to make video conferencing ‘playful’ - connecting Grandma’s kitchen and grandchild’s play room and we’ve got something new! Then imagine the applications for work collaborations, distance education, and other visually oriented social interactions.
During the ‘gigahertz’ era of single core processor chips – we purchased DVRs that could record, store and play back video. Maybe not as disruptive to the media/advertising industry as hyped – but it’s a significant leap in our ability to ‘time-shift’ what and when we watch programs.
Multi-core chips – Walking from megahertz, to gigahertz; Leaping up to Terahertz
In chip design – speed is not always everything. Being ‘smart’ matters too…!
Multi-core chips are beyond smart- they are flexible and adaptable – making decisions about crunching 1s and 0s on the fly.
Multi-core chips allow us to manage multiple ‘threads’ – easing the pain of single core chips that are forced to use raw processing power to accomplish multiple tasks. 80 cores on a chip is much more than just a ‘faster chip’ – and we will need new software to fully exploit the benefits of the multi-core chip era…
What does that mean exactly?
We need giants like Microsoft, Sun, IBM, Apple, et al (and unknown start ups) to create new platforms of computing that go well beyond just laptops, cell phones and servers…
Multi-core chips let us reinvent the personal computing experience… let’s look at recent statements coming from Microsoft’s future strategic captain Craig Mundie. (below)
Microsoft is turning out amazing product platforms (i.e. Photosynth, Live Earth, Seadragon, Silverlight/XAML, Surface touch computing) that have potential to reinvent the computing experience. But none of these are really dependent on multi-core systems…
If you want a peek at the Post-Gates Microsoft strategy- keep your eye on articles featuring Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie. Mundie has been quoted in so many words– that Microsoft ‘should not underestimate how quickly multi-core chip architecture will come to market’. This new architecture will require new software- and I suspect that Microsoft is not going to miss this industry shift (Read Barrons; WSJ (video interview with Mundi on multi-core 2)
So what will mulit-core applications look like?
Skeptics of the multi-core era of computing point out that ‘just being faster is not a revolution’ – they ask ‘why do I need a terahertz chip when I am just doing word, email, powerpoint or video editing?’ And they are correct that multi-core would not be a revolution for creating documents and presentations. But they are not seeing the utilization of managing multiple threads for ‘new applications’ that don’t currently exist! Multi-core chips will likely lead to a world of new computer interfaces driven by advanced software- and machine to machine (M2M) computing platforms that take the human entirely out of the picture. (This is a classic futures studies problem – and why professional futurists bring value to clients who have difficulty imaging life beyond the current ‘era’ of operations.)
It is hard to break free of today’s model of the human-computer experience and imagine an era in which multi-core processing creates entirely new applications that we do not currently demand! Only fifteen years ago it was hard for use to imagine a ‘work station computer’ at home – before there was an Internet, email, digital cameras, cheap software for video editing, blogging software, web travel sites, et al)
Multicore platforms will require an evolution in software and interface design. Peek at CNET’s Mary Jay Foley’s blog on ‘mult-core chip applications’ – and download Craig Mundie’s powerpoint presentation. At some level there is nothing really ‘new’ here. Leading edge thinkers have been talking about ‘contextual computing, et al’ for many years. The difference is that these words are coming from Microsoft…
The point is - new apps will have to be created – and we do not yet know what these systems will accomplish. But if you are comfortable with the abstractions of thinking about the future – listen to Microsoft’s Craig Mundie:
‘Context Aware, Model based, Personalized, Humanistic, Adaptive, Immersive’
What do new software apps of 2014 look like? We cannot say..!
But we know it will be different.
Start paying attention to the chorus of ‘mult-core’ computing era enthusiasts… Intel, Sun, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, et al…
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—Just thinking about why consumers might want an 80-core chip…
My best guess is that this sort of computational model may be needed to bridge the "digital" to the "natural", to develop the texture, physics, and detail necessary for immersive gaming.
Another potential reason might be a drive for computer-driven empathy, essentially, a level of pattern recognition needed to intuit our desires and to make the internet more relevant. Think of a personalized Google on steroids. It’s no longer about access to information - it’s about relevance.
A third area is data mining - being able to sort through a range of variables and potential relationships to build models of how complex interactions work. This might be more of a commercial rather than consumer application, but potentially useful, nonetheless…
The last area might be the development of personality. A computer with a degree of native intelligence derived from weeks or months of "training".
Computers are still behind people in terms of pattern recognition, social interaction, and inference. Once these barriers are surpassed, some really interesting things could happen…