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Tom's Hardware is reporting on Soft Machines, a startup that is creating a new CPU architecture to be used in custom processors and SoCs for partnered companies:
Soft Machines, a well-funded startup ($175 million to date) that came out of stealth last year, announced its "Virtual Instruction Set Computing" (VISC) architecture, which promises 2-4x higher performance/Watt compared to existing CPU designs.
Current CPU architectures scale performance by using wider architectures and out-of-order execution to improve instruction-level parallelism (ILP) and by adding additional cores to improve thread-level parallelism (TLP). These techniques are limited by Amdahl's law, however, leading to larger, more power-hungry processors. The challenges of multi-threaded programming, which is necessary to extract the full benefit of multiple CPU cores, also places limits on achieving high levels of TLP.
In order to improve performance/Watt scaling, Soft Machines is taking a different approach. Its architecture uses "virtual cores" (VC) that shift the burden of thread scheduling and synchronization from the software programmer and operating system to the hardware itself. With VISC, a single thread is not restricted to a single core like traditional multiprocessor designs. Instead, it gets broken down into smaller threadlets by the VCs and executes on multiple underlying physical cores (PC). By using the available execution units more efficiently, the VISC architecture, in theory, can maintain high performance even when using smaller, simpler physical cores, which reduces power consumption. Another advantage of this technique is that single-threaded applications can execute on multiple physical cores.
Soft Machines claimed that its virtual cores can either increase the performance/Watt by 2-4x at the same power consumption level, or they can decrease the power consumption by 4x at the same performance level relative to existing designs. Unlike ARM, which licenses its core design IP, or Intel, which manufactures its own cores and SoCs, Soft Machines will partner with other companies to create custom processors and SoCs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday February 08 2016, @01:25PM
A law (with the exception of legal) is an observation of a common pattern.
Also the law of gravity is an observation of a common pattern. It's just that this pattern is so common and universally observed that we are convinced beyond doubt that all future observations will also follow it.
However in some sense, the law of gravity has been violated in the past. For example, the movement of Mercury did not follow the law of gravitation, as described by Newton. Indeed, astronomers have long sought for a planet even closer to the sun, that could explain those deviations. Well, it turned out that the real reason was that the law of gravitation was wrong. Einstein (for reasons completely unrelated to Mercury) formulated a new theory of gravitation (known as theory of general relativity), and the correct prediction of Mercury's movement was the first hallmark of success for this new theory.
Now you have to decide: What is "the law of gravitation"? Newton's law of gravitation? Einstein's law of gravitation? Or simply the law "all things fall down" (which is already broken by helium balloons)?
Note that we already expect Einstein's law of gravitation to eventually break down as well, as general relativity is not compatible with quantum mechanics.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.