Intel demonstrates 48 cores on a single chip

Intel on Wednesday demonstrated an experimental, 48-core processor that rethinks many of the approaches used in today’s designs for laptops, PCs and servers. The chip boasts about 10 to 20 times the processing engines inside today’s most popular Intel processors. The prototype contains 48 fully programmable processing cores, the most ever on a single chip, and a high-speed on-chip network for sharing information. New power management techniques allow all 48 cores to operate at as little as 25 watts, or at 125 watts for maximum performance. Intel will distribute about 100 of the chips to industry and academic partners for development uses.