Super Computer

Super Computer 

                                 A supercomputer is a computer that performs at or near the currently highest operational rate for computers. Traditionally, supercomputers have been used for scientific and engineering applications that must handle very large databases or do a great amount of computation (or both). Although advances like multi-core processors and GPGPUs (general-purpose graphics processing units) have enabled powerful machines for personal use (see: desktop supercomputer, GPU supercomputer), by definition, a supercomputer is exceptional in terms of performance.

                                 At any given time, there are a few well-publicized supercomputers that operate at extremely high speeds relative to all other computers. The term is also sometimes applied to far slower (but still impressively fast) computers. The largest, most powerful supercomputers are really multiple computers that perform parallel processing. In general, there are two parallel processing approaches: symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and massively parallel processing (MPP).

Processors (CPU)

Processors (CPU)

Definition: A processor is the logic circuitry that responds to and processes the basic instructions that drive a computer. The four primary functions of a processor are fetch, decode, execute and write back. The arithmetic logic unit (ALU), which carries out arithmetic and logic operations on the operands in instructions.

Multi-Core Processor

The basic elements of a processor:
The floating point unit (FPU), also known as a math coprocessor or numeric coprocessor, a specialized coprocessor that manipulates numbers more quickly than the basic microprocessor circuitry can.
Registers, which hold instructions and other data. Registers supply operands to the ALU and store the results of operations.
L1 and L2 cache memory. Their inclusion in the CPU saves time compared to having to get data from random access memory (RAM).
Now-a-days Multicore processors are ruling the World.

Multicore Processors

MultiCore Processors

Definition: A multicore processor is a single integrated circuit (a.k.a., chip multiprocessor or CMP) that contains multiple core processing units, more commonly known as cores. There are many different multicore processor architectures, which vary in terms of

• Number of cores. Different multicore processors often have different numbers of cores. For example, a quad-core processor has four cores. The number of cores is usually a power of two.
• Number of core types.
  • Homogeneous (symmetric) cores. All of the cores in a homogeneous multicore processor are of the same type; typically the core processing units are general-purpose central processing units that run a single multicore operating system.
  • Heterogeneous (asymmetric) cores. Heterogeneous multicore processors have a mix of core types that often run different operating systems and include graphics processing units.
• Number and level of caches. Multicore processors vary in terms of their instruction and data caches, which are relatively small and fast pools of local memory.
• How cores are interconnected. Multicore processors also vary in terms of their bus architectures.
• Isolation. The amount, typically minimal, of in-chip support for the spatial and temporal isolation of cores:
  • Physical isolation ensures that different cores cannot access the same physical hardware (e.g., memory locations such as caches and RAM).
  • Temporal isolation ensures that the execution of software on one core does not impact the temporal behavior of software running on another core.