Engineering Notes
Created by admin on Fri, 06/01/2012 - 16:00
Sub Topic:
Multiple Processor Systems
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Department:
Chapter Name:
Advanced Operating Systems
Description:
Goal of computer architects, engineers and scientists to get more and more computing power
Problem with the goal:
Previous approaches: make clock run faster to speed up
We are beginning to hit some fundamental limits on clock speed
Reason: Einstein’s special theory of relativity
No electrical signal can propagate faster than the speed of light: 30 cm/ns in a vacuum and 20 cm/ns over copper or optical fiber
This means:
with 10 GHz clock, signals cannot travel more than 2 cm total,
with 100 GHz clock, total signal path length at most 2 mm, and
at 1000 GHz (1 THz) computer would have to be smaller than 100 µm
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