Taking a closer look at Intel's Atom multicore processor architecture

By Stephen Blair-Chappell, Intel Compiler Labs.
industrialcontroldesignline.com (October 27, 2008)

Multi-core processors are everywhere. In desktop computing, it is almost impossible to buy a computer today that doesn't have a multi-core CPU inside. Multi-core technology is also having an impact in the embedded space, where increased performance per Watt presents a compelling case for migration.

Developers are increasingly turning to multi-core because they either want to improve the processing power of their product, or they want to take advantage of some other technology that is 'bundled' within with the multi-core package. Because this new parallel world can also represent an engineering challenge, this article offers seven tips to help ease those first steps towards using these devices.

It's not unnatural to want to use the latest technology in our favourite embedded design. It is tempting to make a design a technological showcase, using all the latest knobs, bells and whistles. However, it is worth reminding ourselves that what is fashion today will be 'old hat' within a relatively short period. If you have an application that works well the way it is, and is likely to keep performing adequately within the lifetime of the product, then maybe there is no point in upgrading.

One of the benefits of recent trends within processor design has been the focus on power efficiency. Prior to the introduction of multi-core, new performance barriers were reached by providing silicon that could run at ever higher clock speeds. An unfortunate by-product of this speed race was that the heat dissipated from such devices made them unsuitable for many embedded applications.

As clock speeds increased, the limits of the transistor technology physics were moving ever closer. Researchers looked for new ways to increase performance without further increasing power consumption. It was discovered that by turning down the clock speeds and then adding additional cores to a processor, it was possible to get a much improved performance per Watt measurement.

The introduction of multi-core, along with new gate technologies and a redesign of the most power-hungry parts of a CPU, has led to processors that use significantly less power, yet deliver greater raw processing performance than their antecedents.

An example is the Intel Atom, a low power IA processor which uses 45nm Hi-K transistor gates. By implementing an in-order pipeline, adding additional deep sleep states, supporting SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) instructions and using efficient instruction decoding and scheduling, Intel has produced a powerful but not power-hungry piece of silicon. Taking advantage of the lower power envelope could in itself be a valid reason for using multi-core devices in an embedded design " even if the target application is still single-threaded.

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