Intel Labs has created an experimental 48-cores CPU called as Single-Chip Cloud Computer

New from Intel researchers — an experimental 48 core processor has been created. It was called single-chip cloud computer (SCC) and features 24 dual-core tiles with 384KB L2 cache per core which gives a total of 18Mb cache. The SCC uses 45nm HKMG process.

There are four integrated DDR3 memory controllers and one memory controller per six tiles and they can address up to 64GB DDR3 memory. Each tile has two cores which communicate through a message buffer, and routers allow each tile to share data with other tiles. SCC features power-efficient design, when each tile can run at a different frequency and there are six banks of four tiles that can run at different voltages. The 48-core chip features a total of 1.3 billion transistors and measures 567 square millimeters and its TDP is 125W.

Intel plans to produce about 100 or more of these experimental chips for research facilities, with the goal of developing new software and programming models for the many-core future.

Presentation of the 48-core processor can be found here.