Scribd
Upload
4 views

Week_3

The document discusses the limitations of single-core CPUs, including power consumption, heat dissipation, and memory constraints, which hinder their performance. It highlights the emergence of multi-core processors as a solution, allowing multiple cores to run in parallel on a single chip, thereby improving processing capabilities. The text emphasizes that while serial performance scaling is no longer feasible, increasing transistor density remains possible.

Uploaded by

malikayan575
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
4 views

Week_3

The document discusses the limitations of single-core CPUs, including power consumption, heat dissipation, and memory constraints, which hinder their performance. It highlights the emergence of multi-core processors as a solution, allowing multiple cores to run in parallel on a single chip, thereby improving processing capabilities. The text emphasizes that while serial performance scaling is no longer feasible, increasing transistor density remains possible.

Uploaded by

malikayan575
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 12

Parallel Computing

Landscape
(CS 526)

Department of Computer Science,


The University of Lahore,
Problems with single “Fast” CPU
– Power Consumption:
• With growing clock power
frequencies, consumption increases
exponentially
• Virtually impossible to keep upward scaling
of clock frequencies

• Sometime in higher frequency


future, could
a have require a whole
processor
nuclear reactor to fulfill the energy needs.
Problems with single “Fast” CPU
– Heat Dissipation:
• With growing clock frequency, more power is
consumed  More heat is dissipated..
• Keeping processors cool become a problem
(with increasing clock frequencies)
Problems…
– Smaller size of transistors:
• Fabrication of become more
processors difficult.

– Limited memory size:


• A single processor has limited internal
memory i.e., cache memory L1, L2, registers,
etc.
• A single processor based system has limited
overall system memory or main memory.
Emergence of Multi-core Processors
• Single-core processors reached physical
their limits because:
– Overheating problem
– Power consumption requirements
– Difficult to design and verify

[Figure credit: Intel Corporation]


Single-core CPU chip

the single core


Multi-core
architectures
• Replicate multiple processor cores on a single
die.

Core 1 Core 2 Core 3 Core 4

Multi-core CPU chip


Multi-core CPU
chip
• The cores fit on a single processor socket
• Also called CMP (Chip Multi-Processor)

c c c c

o o o o

r r r r

e e e e

1 2 3 4

18
The cores run in
parallel
thread 1 thread 2 thread 3 thread 4

c c c c
o o o o
r r r r

e e e e
1 2 3 4

19
Within each core, threads are time-sliced
(just like on a uniprocessor)
several several several several
threads threads threads threads

c c c c
o o o o
r r r r

e e e e
1 2 3 4

20
Within each core, threads are time-sliced
(Or Simultaneous Multithreading can be employed)
several several several several
threads threads threads threads

c c c c
o o o o
r r r r

e e e e
1 2 3 4
Serial Performance Scaling is Over
• Cannot continue to scale processor
frequencies
– no 10 GHz chips

• Cannot continue to increase


power consumption
– can’t melt chip

• Can continue to increase


transistor density

You might also like