Plurality Ltd. is an Israeli
semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...
company, the developer of the HyperCore technology and the HAL (HyperCore Architecture Line)
multi-core
A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such ...
processor. The company is a member of the
Multicore Association
The Multicore Association was founded in 2005. Multicore Association is a member-funded, non-profit, industry consortium focused on the creation of open standard APIs, specifications, and guidelines that allow system developers and programmers ...
.
HyperCore
Plurality develops the HyperCore
CPU
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, a ...
technology, which is a
MIMD
In computing, multiple instruction, multiple data (MIMD) is a technique employed to achieve parallelism. Machines using MIMD have a number of processors that function asynchronously and independently. At any time, different processors may be exe ...
32-bit
RISC
In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set comp ...
based multi-processor on a single chip, and contains from 16 to 256 cores. HyperCore technology supports executing both fine-grained and
coarse-grain parallelism due to its special hardware Synchronizer/Scheduler, shared memory and task based programming model.
The HyperCore technology's synchronizer/scheduler (patented,
Plurality's Hypercore Joins the Multi-Core Fray
see below also) eliminates the need of repeatedly executing a special kernel
Kernel may refer to:
Computing
* Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems
* Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution
* Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming
* Kernel method, in machine learn ...
program controlling and deciding which task (or thread) to currently assign and execute on a given processor. The ability to synchronize tasks in hardware allows the processor to support fine-grained programs and to achieve almost a linear speedup. Fine grained programs can only be executed when tasks' duration is significantly shorter than the overhead time introduced by the scheduler. The HyperCore's shared memory (patent pending) avoid the coherency problem and keep a single memory space for all cores in the system thus simplifying the programming model significantly.
Patents
Synchronizer/scheduler
Dr. Nimrod Bayer and Dr. Ran Ginosar, two of Plurality's founders, received United States Patent 5202987 (“A High Flow-Rate Synchronizer/Scheduler for Multiprocessors”) for the company's core technology on April 13, 1993. The patent has been cited by more than 30 subsequent patents. The patent abstract is as follows:
"A high flow rate synchronizer/scheduler apparatus for a multiprocessor system during program run-time, comprises a connection matrix for monitoring and detecting computational tasks which are allowed for execution containing a task map and a network of nodes for distributing to the processors information or computational tasks detected to be enabled by the connection matrix. The network of nodes possesses the capability of decomposing information on a pack of allocated computational tasks into messages of finer sub-packs to be sent towards the processors, as well as the capability of unifying packs of information on termination of computational tasks into a more comprehensive pack. A method of performing the synchronization/scheduling in the multiprocessor system of this apparatus is also described."
See also
* Parallel computing
Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different f ...
* Parallel programming model
In computing, a parallel programming model is an abstraction of parallel computer architecture, with which it is convenient to express algorithms and their composition in programs. The value of a programming model can be judged on its ''generality ...
* Speedup
* Task parallelism
Task parallelism (also known as function parallelism and control parallelism) is a form of parallelization of computer code across multiple processors in parallel computing environments. Task parallelism focuses on distributing tasks—concurrent ...
References
{{reflist, 2
External links
Plurality's website
Companies established in 2004
Fabless semiconductor companies
Semiconductor companies of Israel