There are currently no mainstream general-purpose

processors A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

built to operate on 512-bit integers or addresses, though a number of processors do operate on 512-bit data.

Representation

A 512-bit register can store 2⁵¹² different values. The range of

integer An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign (−1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the language ...

values that can be stored in 512 bits depends on the integer representation used. The maximum value of an unsigned 512-bit integer is 2⁵¹² − 1, written in decimal as 13,407,807,929,942,597,099,574,024,998,205,846,127,479,365,820,592,393,377,723,561,443,721,764,030,073,546,976,801,874,298,166,903,427,690,031,858,186,486,050,853,753,882,811,946,569,946,433,649,006,084,095 or approximately 1.34078 x 10¹⁵⁴, or textualized as over 13.407 Quinquagintillion.

Hardware

Sapphire Radeon R9 290X-front oblique PNr°0437

The Intel Xeon Phi has a

vector processing unit In computing, a vector processor or array processor is a central processing unit (CPU) that implements an instruction set where its instructions are designed to operate efficiently and effectively on large one-dimensional arrays of data called ' ...

with 512-bit vector registers, each one holding sixteen

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...

elements or eight

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...

elements, and one instruction can operate on all these values in parallel. However, the Xeon Phi's vector processing unit does not operate on individual numbers that are 512 bits long. Some GPUs such as the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Radeon HD 2900XT, the

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

GTX 280, GTX 285, Quadro FX 5800 and several Nvidia Tesla products move data across a 512-bit memory bus. Then AMD Radeon R9 290, R9 290X and 295X2 followed. AVX-512 are 512-bit extensions to the 256-bit Advanced Vector Extensions SIMD instructions for x86

instruction set architecture In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...

proposed by Intel in July 2013, and released on 2016 with

Knights Landing Knights Landing (formerly, Baltimore and East Grafton) is a census-designated place in Yolo County, California, United States, founded by William Knight. It is located on the Sacramento River around 25 miles northwest of Sacramento in the northeas ...

, and in 2017 on the HEDT and consumer server platform, with Skylake-X and

Skylake-SP Skylake is the codename used by Intel for a processor microarchitecture that was launched in August 2015 succeeding the Broadwell microarchitecture. Skylake is a microarchitecture redesign using the same 14 nm manufacturing process tech ...

respectively.

Software

Many hash functions, such as

SHA-512 SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) is a set of cryptographic hash functions designed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and first published in 2001. They are built using the Merkle–Damgård construction, from a one-way compression ...

and SHA3-512, have a 512-bit output.

References

{{Processor technologies Data unit