Intel, Developing a 48-Core Processor

If you have a smartphone, then the processor inside is going to be at a dual or quad-core level. This is the current standard, and based on the performance of phones that we are all used to, no one really seems to be complaining, except for the hardcore of all geeks (I am certainly not one of them).

But you have to ask yourself: Just where could smartphones be in five to ten years? Smartphones were more-or-less simply in development ten years ago, seeming only as a dream – perhaps a representation of the future. But given where they have gone already, it is not easy to imagine their possible performance.

However, the tech giant Intel is giving a clue by having announced the development of a 48-core processor (yes you read that right). This sounds completely over-the-top for a smartphone, but it is important to remind ourselves of the type of software that could be going into the phones in the first place.

Even more so, with the growing trend of higher demand in receiving information, it may be that the 48-core development is more out of necessity rather than some sort of luxury.

Reviewing Processors

Before we go on, perhaps it is necessary to conduct a little review on just what these processors are. The more processors in a system, the more capable your machine is able to conduct a certain function – commands for the computer can be spread out among more parts with more processors. No one has it any more, but if you had a single-core processor and you wanted to download something, then that is the lone function that the computer can perform.

Fast-forward to today, the dual and quad-core processors allow one to simultaneously download an item while looking up something on a voice assistance system like Siri on an iOS device (also now on Google Voice Search).  Now imagine what a 48-core processor would be able to do – I sure can't.

The 48 CPU Possibilities

An article in Techno Buffalo does enhance the idea a little bit more thanks to the publication getting in touch Intel themselves. In a quote that they got from Justin Ratter, who serves as Intel's chief technology officer, Ratter explains that a 48-core processor will enable more human-like interaction between the user and the phone. At the speeds that a 48-core processor could conduct, the interaction would come off as almost seamless.

There is also talk that such a computer with high core processing unit (CPU) power would nullify the necessity to have more than one device in the first place. As an article in Forbes explains, the device may serve one purpose at one time (say, mobile) and with its great speeds could form into something else for a larger screen or other medium.

The technology that we are talking about here is something that most would find unfathomable at the moment, but Intel is proving that the time isn't so far off. However, much software will have to be developed that is able to stretch out across such a wide-array of CPU's. The reason why devices these days only have two or four CPUs is because that is all that is really necessary.

With Intel's research and development in the works, advanced development in software will certainly be sooner rather than later.

Guest Author

Doug Glaston is a tech and science blogger out who mostly writes on the latest trends in development from Google, Apple and others.