1,000 Core Computer That Can Run On An AA Battery

Meet KiloCore, a 1,000-core Processor So Efficient It Could run on a AA Battery

This monstrous CPU is 100 times more power-efficient than today's laptops

Brad Chados | June 20, 2016

[Blogger's note: What is a core? Here's a more non-technical way to think about what a core is. Most of the readers here have not looked under the hood of their laptop or desktop computer. If you did, you would see a single larger chip, bigger than the postage-stamp size of times past, but still not not much larger than an inch and a half square. That CPU can be built inside a number of ways. You can duplicate the fast hardware section of the the CPU a number of times, and each one is essentially like a computer inside the CPU. Is it as good as 1,000 CPUs on separate computer boxes? Not necessarily, but many factors go together to get speed. The biggest one might be how well the separate computers communicate with the user's applications or each other. On separate boxes this can be slower than if they are all on one big chip inside the same box. When cores need data from memory or need to access the network, they may have to share resources. Otherwise they can run mostly independently and crunch away. In general, you get a good deal from having 1,000 cores compared to 1,000 separate computers, but they are not the same. To take advantage of the 1,000 cores, your software needs to be built in a special way. Many of today's applications do not fit the bill.]
If you were impressed by Intel’s first-ever 10-core consumer processor—and there was a lot to like!—well, check this monster out. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have created a new processor with a ridonkulous 1,000 CPU cores. And the chip’s so power-efficient that it could be run by a single AA battery, the team claims.
Seriously.

"This microchip with 1,000 processor cores was designed by graduate students in the UC Davis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The chip is thought to be fastest designed in a university lab." Source: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/worlds-first-1000-processor-chip

<more at http://www.pcworld.com/article/3085502/components-processors/meet-kilocore-a-1000-core-processor-so-efficient-it-could-run-on-a-aa-battery.html; related articles and links: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/worlds-first-1000-processor-chip (World’s First 1,000-Processor Chip. June 17, 2016) and http://www.slashgear.com/1000-core-kilo-core-processor-built-at-uc-davis-20444918/ (1,000-core “kilo-core” processor built at UC Davis. June 20, 2016); further: http://www.futurity.org/kilocore-chip-1000-processors-1185992-2/ (1,000 core processor could run on an AA battery. June 20, 2016)>