Intel's Vision for Software Defined Super Cores
Intel is pursuing a new avenue to enhance single-core CPU performances beyond the traditional means of hardware scaling. Indeed, a recently issued patent, EP4579444A1, discusses the idea of Software Defined Super Cores (SDC), wherein smaller cores cooperate as one big "super core" to perform single-thread tasks much more efficiently.
Concept Virtual Fusion for One Task
The SDC's main idea is to escape the diminishing returns of building a single, very large physical core. Instead, SDC will let a CPU virtually and dynamically fuse multiple smaller cores when it detects that a specific single-threaded job is stringent. Then this fused core works together on that job.
To the hierarchy code, this set of cores appears as a huge core executing one thread. The workload gets divided amongst the physical cores, who sync together to preserve the proper instruction order.
Although this looks similar to multi-threading, the patent specifies clearly that the SDC is primarily focused on improving single-thread execution, not on executing parallel threads.
Possible Advantages and Technical Approach
The software-defined approach has many advantages to exhale:
- Single-threaded IPC Improvements: More than just a few cores could start to enhance performance for an individual thread. Additive results could be achieved weighing all these cores Instructions Per Clock (IPC).
- Efficiency Dynamics: Improved performance without increasing voltage or frequency translates to bundles of extra efficiency.
- Dynamic Scaling: Fused cores could be created dynamically when heavy workloads need them and dissolve when they are no longer needed.
The patent also suggests some possible implementations for the combined cores to ensure correctness, like the Shadow Store Buffer mechanism that should guarantee consistency of observed modifications and properly synchronize data exchanges.
A Few Important Hurdles Still Remain
Lots of promise in this idea but all the same, Intel foresees a multitude of challenges that must be addressed before SDC becomes a reality:
- Complex61 in Synchronization: Among multiple cores, maintaining program order for a single thread is brutally hard.
- Core Intercommunication: These cores require the quick message-passing transmission with utmost low-latency.
- Operating System Integration: A cunning OS that can identify SDC-enabled cores and correctly allot workload to them would be desirable.
The Software Defined Super Cores patent symbolizes an enthralling route into the future CPU architecture, one that dwells on software and dynamic coordination rather than one that builds on bigger power-hungry hardware alone.
