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Parallel, like a Protozoa?

By Clay Breshears (Intel) (124 posts) on July 24, 2007 at 2:50 pm

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

I actually saw an article on multi-core programming in my local newspaper. I guess it shouldn't be all that surprising since I work in Champaign, IL, home of NCSA and twin city to the birthplace of the HAL 9000 computer: Urbana, IL. We should be getting all sorts of cool technology news.

The article discussed a proposed method of running applications on multi-core processors put forth by Dr. Rakesh Kumar. His idea is to liken applications running in parallel to amoebas that can copy themselves and move those copies over to other cores in the processor as needed. It's an interesting concept, but there were no details in the article and no inkling about how all of this might be programmed or controlled.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any more info through Dr. Kumar's UIUC home page. However, if Kumar is still thinking along thes lines when we get 10's and 100's of cores, we might see how it would work in practice.

Categories: Parallel Programming

Comments (2)

December 24, 2007 5:56 AM PST blue_eye

I am interesting of how it being likely to work,maybe it will be a new theroy,i am just waiting...

February 8, 2008 8:16 AM PST Clay Breshears (Intel) Total Points: 15,225 Status Points: 15,225 Black Belt

This may be a new programming model for parallelism. It does remind me of the cellular automata ideas that Steven Wolfram has been writing about and putting forth in "A New Kind of Science."

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