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Hammer1
With recent reports of the impending demise of PCs due to smartphones and ...
Jef van de Molengraft
Yes it is 6Hz... But it´s the worlds first working processor on foil!
Researchers carve CPU into plastic foil
Rick Merritt
11/23/2010 1:11 AM EST
SAN JOSE, Calif. – A crude microprocessor built from two thin sheets of plastic foil may steal some of the spotlight from traditional CPU giants when it debuts at a seminal industry event in February. The International Solid State Circuits Conference will also host papers on a 5.2 GHz processor from IBM and an Intel Itanium chip packing 54 Mbytes cache.
At ISSCC, researchers from Europe will describe an 8-bit, 6 Hz device running a hardcoded program on two sheets of foil just 25 microns thick, using a 10V power supply. The team hails from five organizations including the Imec research center in Belgium and startup Polymer Vision (Eindhoven, Netherlands) which is developing flexible displays.
"The organic processor is showing real promise though it is some distance from real utility," said Ken Smith, one of the organizers of ISSCC.
At the other end of the spectrum IBM will describe what ISSCC organizers claim is one of the fastest microprocessors to date, a 5.2 GHz CMOS chip designed for the company's Z-series mainframes. The four-core CPU, built in a 45nm silicon–on-insulator process, packs nearly 30 Mbytes of cache and will be used in IBM's zEnterprise 196 systems.
The paper will describe how IBM overcame timing, power and noise issues to hit the 5.2 GHz data rate at a time when other CPU designers are keeping a lid on clocks to conserve power. "The IBM Z-series guys have a different perspective on building processors even from the IBM Power processor people," said David Kanter, who edits a Web site on microprocessor design.
Intel will aim to set its own record with a 32nm Itanium processor that packs 3.1 billion transistors—much of it for a whopping 54 Mbyte cache. "That’s nearly twice anything else in on-chip cache," said Kanter who wrote an analysis of the chip.
The eight-core Poulson processor measures 544mm2 compared to 512mm2 for the IBM Z-series chip. Poulson uses a version of Intel's Quick Path Interconnect scaled up to an estimated 8 GTransfers/second as well as an on-chip ring bus both borrowed from the company's Nehalem x86 server processors.
"This shows Intel is doing more reuse across chips," said Kanter.
Separately, Intel and archrival Advanced Micro Devices will face off with papers describing processors set to debut in January that merge x86 and graphics cores. Intel will describe its 32nm Sandy Bridge that combines four x86 cores with a graphics core. AMD will discuss its 40nm Zacate processor using two new Bobcat x86 cores and a Radeon HD5000 graphics core.
AMD will also present papers expected to provide more detail on Bulldozer, its new high-end x86 core first described at the Hot Chips conference in August. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Loongson Technologies (Beijing) will present a paper on the Godson-3B an eight-core 65nm processor also described at Hot Chips.
The Godson-3B "is a big and important step" for China, said Smith of ISSCC. "The pace at which they have been developing new technology is very significant," he said.
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kinnar
11/23/2010 2:30 AM EST
So many different variants are going to flood the market, but the polymer CPU is something very interesting, it seems that the flexible and fold-able PCs will be there in a near future.
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yalanand
11/23/2010 7:31 AM EST
What is this polymer CPU is all about. Really curious to know how it functions and how it will be useful in future. Anybody has any detailed info ?
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pixies
11/23/2010 10:36 AM EST
Polymer is not a solid state material. I guess in the future the conference has to change its name.
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iniewski
11/23/2010 10:50 AM EST
@pixies, Polymer is a solid state material, although it is not semicondcutor so everything is good with the ISSCCC name! BTW, everything can be a solid state (if the temperature is right ;-) so they selected pretty general name...Kris
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bmws88
11/23/2010 10:38 AM EST
Intel uses 8T SRAM for lower level cache. Assuming all 6T, 54MB of cache would have a SRAM cell transistor count of 2.7B already. That leaves only 0.4B for redundancy, cache peripheral, and the 8 cores. Do the numbers add up right?
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iniewski
11/23/2010 10:47 AM EST
@bmws88, you seem to be right, something is not adding up here: 54MB times 8 times 6 is about 2.6B transistors already...Kris
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DrQuine
11/23/2010 11:00 AM EST
It is interesting that a simple CPU captures our imagination at the same time that an extremely complex one is rolling out. I suspect that it is because small numbers are easier to grasp than large ones - and because we can appreciate that a device built with simple materials and a simple architecture has the potential to be incorporated in unexpected ways in existing products.
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bmws88
11/23/2010 11:04 AM EST
I calculated 2.7B instead of ~2.6B because I used 1MBit=1024*1024=1.049 million cells. Either way it does not make too much difference. For comparison, the 45nm Xeon 7500 (aka Nahalem-EX) had 2.3B transistors and a total of 26.5 MB of cache which leaves about 1B for other things, much more reasonable.
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rick.merritt
11/23/2010 11:47 AM EST
I checked the abstract again and all the numbers are correct. Here it is: "The Intel 32nm Poulson processor contains 3.1 billion transistors integrated onto a single 544mm2 silicon die size. Eight processor cores and a total of 54MB of on-chip cache are linked by an on-chip ring-like interconnect bus."
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bobbytsai
11/23/2010 12:14 PM EST
GF100 (Nvidia) die size ~ 23mm x 24mm ~ 550mm^2 ... Shared / L1 / L2 / Texture Memories ~ 2MB total "cache" leaving most of the die for other things. These CPU are dinosaurs. AMD/ATI and Nvidia GPUs today have 20-50x combination logic of these mainstream CPUs. Peak memory bandwidth of CPU is a fraction of top GF1xx or Cayman GPUs.
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t.alex
11/23/2010 6:24 PM EST
I am just curious about this processor "built from 2 thin sheets of plastic foil". How does it look like and anything significance?
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Jef van de Molengraft
3/3/2011 1:25 PM EST
The polymer is transparent and acts as the substrate. The size is about 3x5cm. Size optimization was not yet in mind during the design process :)
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
11/23/2010 8:26 PM EST
"'The organic processor is showing real promise though it is some distance from real utility,' said Ken Smith, one of the organizers of ISSCC."
The organic processor does show promise. The one I use has glimmers of utility now and then.
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Sheetal.Pandey
11/23/2010 11:07 PM EST
Processor in plastic foil. Interesting.Since its 8bit the heat sink may not be in a issue. Wonder how will it handle heat dissipation?
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prabhakar_deosthali
11/25/2010 2:28 AM EST
How will this processor made of plastic be powered? Will be it from some kind of organic battery? in that case it will make an interesting case. May be tomorrows newspapers will have an embedded fold-able built in processor inside which will download the latest news and articles from some www site. Fold-able processors and fold-able displays will make a strong case for such newspaper applications.
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agk
11/25/2010 6:08 AM EST
Different technologies based microprocessros were invented in the past like optical based,magnetic resonance based etc in the past 10 years from many labs. Till date there is nothing to compete the silicon semiconductor based mcu's.This palstic foil also may one among them and it may take few more decades to have a new revolution
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one_armed_bandit
12/6/2010 1:48 PM EST
"Diamond Age" by Stevenson is going to be here in just a few months. The plastic CPU will end up in cheap, disposable consumer projects like cell phones and toys. Put one in a cable to make it smart.
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David Ashton
3/3/2011 1:56 PM EST
"At ISSCC, researchers from Europe will describe an 8-bit, 6 Hz device...."
6Hz?? Now that's fast!! Does anyone know if that should be KHz, MHz or GHz? My guess would be MHz, but who knows?
"The organic processor is showing real promise though it is some distance from real utility..."
Maybe it IS 6Hz.....
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Jef van de Molengraft
3/17/2011 6:33 PM EDT
Yes it is 6Hz... But it´s the worlds first working processor on foil!
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Hammer1
4/25/2013 4:25 AM EDT
With recent reports of the impending demise of PCs due to smartphones and tablets, it is interesting how companies are still investing on PC chips. Granted that these microprocessors could be use for mobile devices as well, but it is not stated in the article. I believe there is still hope for PCs, but the industry has to work fast to make it more enticing to own PCs to combat with the rising use of mobile devices. The initial idea of a microprocessor from two thin sheets of plastic foil may be a good start. - http://www.hammerplastics.com
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