Basic Description
According to AMD, Bulldozer-based CPUs are based on GlobalFoundries's 32 nm Silicon on insulator (SOI) process technology and reuses the approach of DEC for multitask computer performance with the arguments of, according to press notes, "balances dedicated and shared computer resources to provide a highly compact, high units count design that is easily replicated on a chip for performance scaling." In other words, by eliminating some of the "redundant" elements that naturally creep into multicore designs, AMD has hoped to take better advantage of its hardware capabilities, while using less power.
Bulldozer-based implementations built on 32nm SOI with HKMG arrived in October 2011 for both servers and desktops. The server segment included the dual chip (16-threads) Opteron processor codenamed Interlagos (for Socket G34) and single chip (4, 6 or 8 threads) Valencia (for Socket C32), while the Zambezi (4, 6 and 8 threads) targeted desktops on Socket AM3+.
Bulldozer is the first major redesign of AMD’s processor architecture since 2003, when the firm launched its K8 processors, and also features two 128-bit FMA-capable FPUs which can be combined into one 256-bit FPU. This design is accompanied by two integer clusters, each with 4 pipelines (the fetch/decode stage is shared). Bulldozer will also introduce shared L2 cache in the new architecture. AMD's marketing service calls this design a "Module". A 16-threads processor design would feature eight of these "modules", but the operating system will recognize each "module" as two logical cores.
The "module", described as two logical cores, can be contrasted with a single Intel core with HyperThreading. The only difference between the two approaches is that Bulldozer provides dedicated schedulers and integer units for each thread, whereas in Intel's core all threads must compete for available execution resources.
Read more about this topic: Bulldozer (microarchitecture)
Famous quotes containing the words basic and/or description:
“When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the most exhaustive and well-meaning autobiography, determined to tell the truth, represents, at best, a guess. There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought,”Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?” If I don’t know such basic things about myself, who does?”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)