multicore

A computer chip that contains more than one CPU (one processing unit). Multicore chips allow for greater increases in computing power in contrast to a single CPU continually made to run faster. Dual-core and quad-core chips came out for the x86 platform in 2005 and 2006 respectively. In 2005, Sun's UltraSPARC T1 chip was introduced with up to eight cores. See dual core, quad core, multiprocessing and Cell chip.

A Whole Lotta Cores

In the summer of 2007, Tilera released its TILE64 chip, containing 64 cores (64 "tiles"), a high-speed interconnect, plus controllers for memory, Ethernet, PCI Express and other I/O (see TILE64). Each of the 64 cores has its own L1 and L2 caches and a switch that connects it to the mesh. (Image courtesy of Tilera Corporation, www.tilera.com)