The microprocessor market is like a schoolyard bragging contest. First it was "my clock speed's faster than yours", and now it's all "My dad's got more cores than your dad". Intel, with its paltry quad core Xeon, is about to have its lunch money stolen by Silicon Valley startup Tilera Corp (nope, not that one).
The TILE64 is a 64 core chip which does away with the bus, instead using a switch in the core of each processor. This speeds up the communication between the separate sections, clocking in speeds more than 10 times faster than a dual core Xeon.
Tilera, which continues the Philip K Dick style synchronicites with its 64 employees, says that the TILE64 is not a desktop chip – it is more suited for digital signal processing jobs. Think cell towers and graphics processing. And it doesn't stop there. Tilera founder says that "By 2014, you will see a 1,000-core chip coming out." Prices start at $435, minimum order 10,000.
