The evaluation results will not only provide insight to microprocessor designers, but also help system architects of AON types of device to select the right processors.
Due to the rapid advances in circuit integration technology, and to optimize performance while maintaining acceptable levels of energy efficiency and reliability, multicore technology or Chip-Multiprocessor is becoming the technology of choice for microprocessor designers.
Among the major problems facing the microprocessor designers is the application of even higher degree of speculation in combination with functional partitioning of the processor, which prepares the way for exceeding the classical dataflow limit imposed by data dependences.
"It's pretty exciting in what it has enabled," said Marc Tremblay, a Sun microprocessor designer.
"This was something we were doing for the community, and anybody who added to it was welcomed," recalled Dennis Allison, a microprocessor designer who was a co-author of Tiny Basic and who founded Dr. Dobbs, an early programmer's journal.
The biggest UK success story of recent years has been ARM, the microprocessor designer, but it was born and grew up in Cambridge, not London.
The University's Endowment Fund is also putting in capital, and Cambridge-based microprocessor designer ARM Holdings and IP Group is another investor.
The first move came last year, when Apple purchased chip designer PA Semi for $278 million in cash (see "Apple Buys Chip Designer"), obtaining the services veteran microprocessor designer Dan Dobberpuhl and a team of chip designers who specialize in wringing power out of processors.
The company, which makes semiconductors for cable modems and other networks, flexed its buying-power muscles again yesterday, announcing plans to buy SiByte, a microprocessors designer, for about $2 billion in stock.
And in both cases, changes in organisational procedures can produce huge gains in efficiency.Over the years, the designers of microprocessors have resorted to all sorts of tricks to make their products run faster.
But Robin Saxby, chairman and chief executive of ARM Holdings, one of the leading designers of microprocessors for hand-held devices, still thinks m-commerce -- B-to-B or not -- is still a bit of a pipe dream.
