New ‘super’ computer that’s greener, 20 times faster than desktop PCs

Friday, 31 December 2010 02:42 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

London (ANI): Scientists at the University of Glasgow have developed an ultra-fast computer chip, which is 20 times faster than regular desktop computers.

Regular PCs have two, four or sometimes 16 cores but the new central processing unit (CPU) developed by the researchers effectively had 1,000 cores on a single chip.

Dr Wim Vanderbauwhede said the new super computer is also a lot greener than regular desktops, reports the Daily Mail. Using a chip called Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), the team divided the transistors within the chip into small groups and ask each to perform a different task. By creating more than 1,000 mini-circuits within the FPGA chip, the researchers effectively turned the chip into a 1,000-core processor – each core working on its own instructions.

“FPGAs are not used within standard computers because they are fairly difficult to program but their processing power is huge while their energy consumption is very small because they are so much quicker – so they are also a greener option,” Vanderbauwhede said.

“I believe these kinds of processors will only become more common and help to speed up computers even further over the next few years,” he added.

Vanderbauwhede will present his research at the International Symposium on Applied Reconfigurable Computing in March next year.