Gone are the days of single core processors. As chipmakers came out with the revolutionary idea of having dual cores on a single chip, computers started to run much faster and consumed much less power. The Babson Lenovo T60 ThinkPads that have been issued to the incoming freshmen can be equipped with single and dual core processers. Well, guess what? Chipmakers are coming out with a single chip that will be able to have 80 cores. Go figure.
This chip is capable of giving mind-blowing speed and no complains for battery life. Quite frankly, the list can go on and on. Well, the wait won’t be too long. Actually, according to the Chief Technology Officer at Intel, Justin Rattner, it will be released in about five years. When it will be introduced to commercial markets, it will change the way computers function, literally.
Intel has been successful in producing such a chip, the size of a fingernail. This chip is capable of producing 1 trillion calculations every second. This could very well be, the fastest chip ever made. It just makes one wonder the possibilities that this chip will provide consumers and businesses. Technology has no limit. It will continue to grow and shock everyone.
In financial markets on Wall Street, tasks that take days to be completed, will take minutes, if not seconds to complete. The possibilities are simply endless. According to BusinessWeek, 10 years ago, a group of supercomputers taking up about “2,000 square feet and [consuming] a half-megawatt of electricity” could do the same job that this fingernail-sized chip will be able to. Information will be transferred at lightning speed and the technology will take a giant leap.
Rivals such as AMD and IBM have been attempting to accomplish such an innovation using multiple chips. After purchasing graphics chipmaker ATI, AMD says a new platform they are working on will also aid to revolutionize the computer industry.
One major drawback is the fact that software is not able to take advantage of multiple-core chips as of yet since they have not yet been made to do so. Software makers are in a dire predicament while trying to write threaded programs that have the capability to take advantage of just two cores. The announcement from Intel will of course give it a major advantage and simply goes to show that processors have the capability to grow and advance beyond belief.
Our world is becoming more and more digital by the second. Software is starting to replace hardware in many new inventions.
Try to imagine the world without technology. Guess what? You can’t.
