[erlang-questions] Tilera 64-core chip - full Linux on each core!

[Matthias Lang]

Roger Larsson writes:

 > http://www.videsignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201801262
 > 
 > "Tilera's approach is straightforward. Its individual cores are full-fledged 
 > general-purpose processors, each capable of running a symmetric 
 > multiprocessing version of Linux. Each core also has an embedded switch for 
 > linking to any of the other cores on the die connected on a mesh network."
 > 
 > "Tilera's approach is unique in part because each of its cores has the 
 > interrupt and cache structures needed to support a full operating system..."
 > 
 > Sounds very interesting to try this chip out in interpreted mode. And 
 > interpretion might prove better suited to cache limited architectures anyway.

I sniffed around the site. It smells a bit vapourware-ish. Shipping
CPUs always have pages and pages of silicon bugs. But not the
Tilera. Maybe you get them from behind the secret login page.

Also, compare the level of detail in their brief to one for a real,
shipping product:

   http://www.tilera.com/pdf/ArchBrief_Arch_V1_Web.pdf

   http://focus.ti.com/lit/ug/spru197d/spru197d.pdf

So they're being a bit shy about revealing details, though I did
manage to find a bit more exposed on arse technica:

  http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/MIT-startup-raises-multicore-bar-with-new-64-core-CPU.ars

which makes it sound more credible again. You never know. It does seem
to be a good match for a language with relatively loosely coupled
processes.

Matthias