Viewpoint: Is Multicore Hardware for General-Purpose Parallel Processing Broken?

摘要

IN THE RECENT decade, most opportunities for performance growth in mainstream general-purpose computers have been tied to their exploitation of the increasing number of processor cores. Overall, there is no question that parallel computing has made big strides and is being used on an unprecedented scale within companies like Google and Facebook, for supercomputing applications, and in the form of GPUs. However, this Viewpoint is not about these wonderful accomplishments. A quest for future progress must begin with a critical look at some of the current shortcomings of parallel computing, which is the aim of this Viewpoint. This will hopefully stimulate a constructive discussion on how to best remedy the shortcomings toward what could ideally become a parallel computing golden age.