The Single-Chip Cloud Computer (SCC) is a computer processor (

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 ...

) created by

Intel Corporation Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 serie ...

in 2009 that has 48 distinct physical cores that communicate through architecture similar to that of a cloud computer data center. Cores are a part of the processor that carry out instructions of code that allow the computer to run. The SCC was a product of a project started by Intel to research

multi-core processor 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 ...

s and parallel processing (doing multiple calculations at once). Additionally Intel wanted to experiment with incorporating the designs and architecture of huge cloud computer data centers (

Cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mu ...

) into a single processing chip. They took the aspect of cloud computing in which there are many remote servers that communicate with each other and applied it to a microprocessor. It was a new concept that Intel wanted to experiment with. The name "Single-chip Cloud Computer" originated from this concept.

Uses

The SCC is currently still being used for research purposes. It currently can run the

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

operating system on the chip, but cannot boot

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

. Some applications of the SCC are web servers, data informatics,

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

, and financial analytics.

Technical details

Intel developed this new chip architecture based on huge cloud data centers, the cores are separated across the chip but are able to directly communicate with each other. The chip contains 48

P54C The Pentium (also referred to as P5, its microarchitecture, or i586) is a fifth generation, 32-bit x86 microprocessor that was introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993, as the very first CPU in the Pentium brand. It was instruction set compatible ...

Pentium cores connected with a 4×6 2D-mesh. This mesh is a group of 24 tiles set up in four rows and six columns. Each tile contained two cores and a 16 KB (8 per core)

message passing In computer science, message passing is a technique for invoking behavior (i.e., running a program) on a computer. The invoking program sends a message to a process (which may be an actor or object) and relies on that process and its supporting ...

buffer (MPB) shared by the two cores, essentially a router. This router allows each core to communicate with each other. Previously cores had to send information back to the main memory and there it would be re-routed to other cores. The SCC contains 1.3 billion 45 nanometers ( nm) long

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

s that can amplify signals or act as a switch and turn core pairs on and off. These transistors use anywhere from 25 to 125

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...

s of power depending on the processing demand. For comparison the Intel i7 processor uses 156 watts of power. Four DDR3 memory controllers are on each chip, connected to the 2D-mesh as well. These controllers are capable of addressing 64 GB of

random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the ...

. The DDR3 memory is used to help each tile communicate with the others, without them the chip would not be functional. These controllers also work with the transistors to control when certain tiles are turned on and off to save power when not in use. When proper coding is implemented all of these pieces are put together you get a functional processor that is fast, powerful, and energy efficient with a framework resembling a network of cloud computers.

Modes of operation

The SCC comes with RCCE, a simple message passing interface provided by Intel that supports basic message buffering operations. The SCC has two modes that it can operate under, processor mode and mesh mode:

Processor mode

In processor mode cores are on and executing code from the system memory and programmed I/O ( inputs and outputs) through the system which is connected to the system board

FPGA A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware d ...

. Loading memory and configuring the processor for bootstrapping (sustaining after the initial load) is currently done by software running on the SCC's management console that's embedded in the chip.

Mesh mode

Cores are turned off. Only the routers, transistors and RAM controllers are on and they are sending and receiving large packets of data. Additionally there is no

memory map In computer science, a memory map is a structure of data (which usually resides in memory itself) that indicates how memory is laid out. The term "memory map" can have different meanings in different contexts. *It is the fastest and most flexible ...

The future

Intel plans to share this technology with other companies such as HP,

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, and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

to have multiple companies researching the SCC to more efficiently and quickly advance the technology. They hope to make the SCC scalable to 100+ cores. One way they hope to achieve this is by having each chip be able to communicate with another chip, and they could put two chips together to get double the cores. They hope to improve the parallel programming productivity and power management to take advantage of the chip's architecture and large number of cores. Additionally they plan to experiment more with this architecture and similar chip architectures to develop a many-core scalable processors that maximizes the processing power of the cores while being power efficient.

References

{{Intel Cloud computing Intel Intel microprocessors Manycore processors Parallel computing