Intel celebrated its 10 year anniversary årsjubileum for the research and development center in Braunschweig, Germany, and took the time to introduce thr new MARC initiative (Many-core Applications Research Community). The MARC program is intended to promote the development of multi-threaded applications focusing on Intel’s SSC platform.
Intel Single-chip Cloud Computer platform builds on the new Many-integrated Cores architecture from which it showed a new 48-core processor last year as a step in the development toward more and more multi-threaded applications.
During the festivities in Germany Intel decided to show this very processor that will now ship out to several major research projects and institutions worldwide. Where all will be working in the MARC program for optimizing software for the parallel power found in Intel’s SCC platform.
The Researchers can use the 48-core research processor known as the Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC) to speed up the development of the next generation of applications and software for multi-core processors (parallel programming). These programs should one day lead to dramatic new computing experiences for people and business. The SCC was introduced at the end of last year.
Intel’s 48-core processor is called a Single-chip Cloud Computer, but uses a regular LGA 1567 packaging, which makes the processor nearly identical to an Intel Xeon 6500/7500 CPU from the Beckton family. The similarities stop at the physical format and even if the processor fits in regular Xeon motherboards you need a special chipset and motherboard to make it work.
Intel ships its SCC system in 19″ rack systems and even if there isn’t any compatibility between processor and Xeon motherboards you can reuse some components, like the cooler.
Picture courtesy of ComputerBase.de
