www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read.php?article_id=14
Technical 52 Niagara: A Torrent of Threads 53 TLP and the Return of KISS 54 Multi-Core UltraSPARCs Uncovered 55 Architecting the Future: Dr. The last half of this century has seen more technological advancements and breakthroughs than any other period of recorded history. The growth of the semiconductor industry parallels that of the products it produces. Many of the largest and most successful companies in the world got their start in this young industry. So, what's next for these machines and the companies that produce them? While simultaneously executing more instructions per second and producing more results with fewer instructions, microprocessors, along with their own enhancements, are becoming more capable candidates for increasingly varied and demanding kinds of work. Even if it moves at it's own pace, software does get better with each new generation of hardware. Increasing computational speed and ability results in more complex and functional programs. The operating system, a word processor, and maybe a game or two? Now, you still have your operating system, a word processor, and a couple of games on a computer thousands of times better than the original IBM PC. These programs are better, much better, but they still serve the same purpose. Computers still do what computers did fifteen years ago, only faster, but that's about to change. Recently, we've seen many new specialized instruction sets and capabilities appearing in new CPUs. Motorola's Alti-Vec, for instance, which turns a PowerPC chip into a digital signal processor. Another example is Sun's VIS instruction set, one of the first of these specialized series of enhancements to show up in any architecture in recent years. Intel's MMX left a great deal of skepticism hanging around, but 3DNow! AMD's technology has been proven, what remains to be seen now is if it can be successfully enhanced while retaining backwards compatibility, and, of course, the strength of AMD's marketing staff. There are two different routes these developments could take the industry. We could see further segmentation, as companies produce different products for each of their various niche markets, or microprocessors could become so generalized by the adoption and implementation of so many different technologies that they could become a one size fits all'' type of product. We already see a good deal of specialization in niche markets, SGI MIPS is an example. We also see generalization, however, with Intel's x86 line being used for a variety of mid to low end purposes. These microprocessors could soon trample on other semiconductor products. A DSP, for example, might be replaced by a microprocessor capable of of doing the same signal processing work, but also capable of doing a great deal more. Increased specialization and great leaps in microprocessor speed have allowed semiconductor products to be used in an ever expanding myriad of fields. Cell phones, calculators, palmtops are just a few of the more common devices. Plans are in motion for smart appliances and even computer controlled houses. We are only just beginning to see some of the future uses for these smart chips, however, as their use broadens with each passing day.
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