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Thirteen months ago, Intel showed off a prototype CPU with EIGHTY cores on the same piece of silicon. It uses about as much electricity as a traditional desktop CPU. This news.com article has some information:

Intel used 100 million transistors on the chip, which measures 275 millimeters squared. By comparison, its Core 2 Duo chip uses 291 million transistors and measures 143 millimeters squared.

The hard part of the design isn’t putting the cores on the same die. The chips have to talk with each other. Routers on the silicon die help assign computations to individual chips, and move finished computations to neighboring chips.

It’s a prototype, so the chips are very basic. It’s incompatible with Intel’s x86 platform. Writing software for a multi-core CPU is difficult, so the demonstrations are very limited. The chips need their own RAM, because external RAM modules like those used in personal computers won’t work. Wikipedia’s article on multicore processors is a good read, and the reference list is helpful.

Intel has a web page about the project, and here’s two YouTube videos with more details.

Computers generate a great deal of waste heat. Active cooling is the most popular method of venting heat, by using powered fans that move air through the computer. However, because a powered fan gets electricity from the systemboard and the computer’s power supply, the fan must spin fast enough to transfer any heat that the fan motor generate, as well as the waste heat the fan is supposed to divert from the CPU and other computer parts. Powered fans also increase the electricity requirements of a computer.

Residential users are more likely to be annoyed by fan noise than energy costs. Media center computers often use fast processors, high-end graphics cards and large hard drives to drive large video screens. Audiophiles do not want fan noise to ruin their experience, so these computers are often designed to reduce fan noise.

In a data center or a server room, the noise generated by hundreds of fans can reach 85 dB (decibels) and louder. That’s loud enough to trigger OSHA regulations, so some data centers provide noise canceling headphones or earplugs for their personnel. As data centers become larger, with faster computers that have louder fans, data centers are now using noise insulation, liquid cooling, and other technologies to manage their physical environment. A few data centers are using low power computers that produce less heat and fan noise. See this 31 July 2007 article from ComputerWorld for more details.

In some computers, passive or convection cooling is a key design element. Apple’s laptops and the Mac Mini have small fans that provide active cooling. In fact, small fans are used in many laptops and small form factor (SFF) desktop computers. As I mentioned in my 3 March 2008 post, laptop designers have to with tightly integrated components. There is much less airspace inside a laptop case than in a desktop computer case.

Passive cooling is also used in many laptop and SFF computers to reduce electrical power consumption. Heat is diverted by connecting the systemboard to the computer case, while small vents allow cool air to enter the computer case. The computer components warm and expand the air inside the case, pushing the heated air out of the case while drawing cool air inside. This article at PowerBook Central provides a nice discussion.

Some laptop owners have noticed that underside of their computers becomes very warm during use. Many laptop computers have vents on their underside. Laying the laptop flat against a table will block the vents, and cause hat to build up inside the computer. Some laptop computers can become too warm to be placed on a user’s lap. I use a plastic or metal stand to raise the computer off the table or away from my lap. I haven’t tried a USB-powered stand, which plugs into a laptop computer’s USB port to spin small fans in the stand. The fans provide active cooling, drawing heat away from the computer case and pulling air through the computer’s vents.

A Stirling idea

TweakTown (via BoingBoing Gadgets) has an article about a clever cooling system that harnesses waste heat to provide active cooling without drawing electricity. MSI has devised a fan motor that is powered by a small Stirling engine, which uses waste heat to power the fan. The system is very quiet. HowStuffWorks and Wikipedia each have articles about Stirling engines. There are several companies that design and sell Stirling engines. American Stirling Company sells small motors that are used as demonstration models. Swedish company Kockums has designed and launched 8 submarines equipped with large Stirling engines.

TweakTown also provided an MSI animation of this motor. I hope the real component moves faster than the simulation!

My brother sent me a link at Tekenstein with an amusing set of pictures regarding heat sinks. The bigger the heat sink, the more heat it can dissipate. The first set of pictures shows a massive heat sink. Of course, heat sinks must be attached to a CPU in a very careful manner, because the chip can be very fragile. The second set of pictures shows a heat sink that someone screwed directly into a motherboard. Maybe the installer needs to RTFM.

A heat sink is a metal device that helps keep a something else cool. Heat sinks are usually installed on the CPU of a computer to keep the Intel or AMD chip from melting or burning. Sometimes the heat sink includes a fan, to keep air moving. I’ve also seen heat sinks and fans attached to the GPU (graphic processing unit) on a graphics card.

Keep your computer clean and cool

Below are some pictures of heat sinks that I found on Flickr. This image shows several sizes of heat sinks (image courtesy Winston_loves_london).

This heat sink is a typical size for a desktop computer, but it is too clogged with dust to be of much use. Dust can really destroy a computer. It’s important to keep your computer off the floor, and to follow a good set of instructions like these from ask-Leo.com and clean-things.com (image courtesy MShades).

Here are a couple of new links about the 45-nanometer Intel Penryn chips that I first mentioned at http://billso.com/2007/01/29/intel-penryn/
According to Engadget, these chips may be delayed until 2008.

Meanwhile, ZDNet reports that Intel’s server market share has increased, but AMD is gaining on the desktop. Thanks to a 7010 student for that article!

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6153973.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn

Intel demonstrated its Penryn chip family for reporters and analysts last week.

These processors are enhanced, smaller versions of the Core 2 Duo design. The main new feature is enhanced multimedia and mathematical performance, through the use of SSE4 instructions.

Of course, the smaller transistor size should reduce power consumption and heat.
They’ll be available by the end of 2007 for desktop, portable and server computers.
Thanks to one of my IS 7010 students for this tip!

For more information about this technology, see http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25512 and http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/04/top_secret_intel_processor_plans_uncovered/page6.html