28-09-2013, 04:55 PM
Seminar Based On Dual Core Processors
Dual Core Processors[.ppt (Size: 428.5 KB / Downloads: 44)
Introduction
Dual core processor provides two completely separate processing cores instead of single core; each has its separate bus. There is a separate cache for each core. A dual-core design allows your computer to use two independent processors to multitask in parallel at the same time.
Dual-core processors are better than single-core processors because they are faster, handle power management more efficiently and run at lower clock speeds.
History
In 2005, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel introduced their desktop dual-core processors to consumers.
Both manufacturers began designing dual-core processors because they found it difficult and expensive to increase the clock frequency in processors without the chips overheating.
They began developing new technology to increase the size of the internal L2 cache. The L2 cache is integrated with the processor chip and normally runs faster than the speed of the motherboard.
When your computer needs data, it searches for information stored in the memory caches on the processor.
Architecture
Conceptually, a dual core processor architecture can be described as shown in the following figure. Integrated
circuit (IC) chips contain two complete physical computer processors (cores) in the same IC package. The processor also includes the cache -- memory -- registers and a bus, which describes the wires connecting everything together. A dual core processor has two cores, but these share facilities such as the bus and cache. Cache is divided into levels. Each core includes its own local "level one" (L1) cache, but they share level two (L2) cache.
Speed
The speed with which a processor operates is determined by the system clock. The clock can be inside the processor, or from an external source. Making computers faster and therefore more powerful, has been focused on increasing the clock speed. With a faster clock speed, the processor can move data arround a lot faster. However, there are limits on achievable speed, principally the problem of overheating. Heat is lost energy, and so a faster processor uses more power. The dual-core architecture enables more processing within a given period, but with a slower clock speed.
Performance
Theoretically, a processor with two cores should be twice as fast as a processor with one. However, in practice, the dual-core processor is about 50 percent faster than its single-core equivalent with the same clock speed. The two cores do not swap information to share the burden of a task. A controller in the processor allocates work to each. Different tasks executed from the same program may run simultaneously on the two cores.
Multitasking
The abilities of dual-core processors are better-suited to running two separate functions simultaneously. An example of this would be burning a DVD while reading through email. In a single-core processor, the two different processes are served in chunks of time allocation, with the processor switching back and forth between the tasks of each process. In a dual-core processor, one core would handle the DVD burning activity, while the other serves the email.
Conclusion
A dual core processor has two cores but will share some of the other hardware like the memory controller and bus. A dual processor system has completely separate hardware and shares nothing with the other processor. In the latter there are two separate CPUs with their own resources. In future the trend will go to multi-core processors more and more. The main reason is that they are faster than single-core processors and they can be still improved.