Michael Adler wrote:
>
> A number of our larger customers care about computation/cubic foot. The
> density of processors is important to them. SMP machines work well here.
>
> A future Alpha processor will be an SMT (symmetric multi threaded)
> machine. Above the lowest levels, it will look like a multi-CPU
> machine. The machine will keep multiple thread contexts live within the
> CPU and will be capable of switching between these threads in a single
> cycle. As it grows harder for compilers to find parallelism within a
> single thread we have had to look elsewhere to keep the machine busy.
>
> -Michael
>
FWIW: The IBM Power3 CPU (AS/400 boxen) already has multiple hardware
threads.
IIRC, they don't exploit them largely because the compilers and OS
were having
a hard time figuring out how to use them. But the hardware can do it,
if they
so desire.
I've found this to be a good general rule:
If it's worth doing in computing, IBM's probably already tried it.
--
-------------------------------------------------
Justin Wojdacki
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (408) 350-5032
Communications Processors Group -- Analog Devices
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