For Programmers, Multicore Chips Mean Multiple Challenges

Abstract

Manufacturers have found themselves unable to effectively continue improving microprocessor performance the old-fashioned ways by shrinking transistors and packing more of them onto single-core chips. Multicore chips improve performance by handling various parts of an application in parallel. Single-core chips, on the other hand, undertake tasks serially. Multicore challenges involve (i) dividing activities into smaller parts, (ii) data dependency, (iii) data splitting, (iv) testing.