Raystonn i have a question ?

[rcf84]

Well since you work for Intel i have a question that an Intel employshould know.

What are some the features on the P4 that are baised of the asynchronous cpu design ?

Since this the first chip of its kind that can support both asynchronous features and available to the public for home desktop users. Don't be surprized if you wtf is he talking about. Raystonn should know the answer or he isn't being very truthful.

Nice Nvidia and ATi users get a Cookie.... Yummy

 

[rcf84]

Raystonn im not going to give you links to the answers so dont ask. Well its a challenge from me i hope you take it seriously it took me a long time to dig this up.

Nice Nvidia and ATi users get a Cookie.... Yummy

 

[Raystonn]

First off, I do not see the need to 'prove' myself with some kind of challenge. If you do not believe what I say then so be it. I am not interested in finding out who does and does not believe what I say.

Second, you already know I cannot tell you anything that is confidential information. I can only repeat what has been released to the public. Thus, unless I find a link, there is not much I can legally say.

Third, the Pentium 4 does have some pieces of unclocked logic, the same technology that would be used in a clockless processor. Circuits that do not follow a main system clock are are also known as self-timed circuits. We are introducing asynchronous design into our processors slowly. Rather than go for the whole processor we are working our way up from smaller clockless modules within the design of a traditional processor. I cannot go into details on any information that has not been publicly released though.

Fourth, I am a software engineer. I am not one of the processor architects. Expecting me to know these details without looking them up on our intranet is pushing it. Most everything that is available on our intranet has the 'confidential' tag on it. So it is not very helpful in giving me information that I can actually share.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[Schmide]

Wouldn’t a clockless processor have some imaginary master clock frequency that all clocks on the system could synchronize to? The differences in synchronization would just be latencies between the clocks.

Schmide

 

[Raystonn]

No. There is no master clock in a clockless processor. Every module (collection of components that perform some subtask) in the processor performs its task as quickly as possible. When there is no task for that particular module to perform, it is powered down. A clockless processor can be up to three times as fast as modern clocked processors while using half the power. The difficulty is in the design.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[lhgpoobaa]

indeed... how the hell does one organise the output coherently if different parts of the cpu run at differing speeds.
too wierd for me

Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

 

[Schmide]

If I have separately clocked parts to a processor, and each unit runs at a different clock rate, then the product of all their clocks would be an <font color=yellow>imaginary</font color=yellow> frequency that all clocks could be scheduled to. I’m using a semantically challenged argument to prove a clock on an unclocked processor.

Schmide

 

[Raystonn]

You can think of each subsection (module) of the processor as an independant server. When you send it some input, it creates some output for you and signals that the output is ready. You then read that output and move on to some other part of the process. For example, think of the internet. All the servers that are available are not operating in any synchronous fashion. Yet they are able to perform tasks for you and give you results when they are done. There is no set time in which results are expected. You are signalled (usually with a fresh page of results) when the data is available. You can then take that data and do whatever else you wish with it. Any server that is not currently being used does not have to be powered up processing anything. It can sit there idle in a power-saving mode.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[somerandomguy]

LOL, that's cool.
How does a clockless processor determine how quickly it can perform a task?
Are there any of these clockless processors in operation?

"Ignorance is bliss, but I tend to get screwed over."

 

[lhgpoobaa]

hmmms. interesting.
that means in any given complex instruction set the cpu will run as fast as the slowest internal operation.

good job ray...
*grins*
whenever i see your name i think of 'ray' in ghostbusters.
hehe

Religious wars are 2 groups of people fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.

 

[Raystonn]

If I have separately clocked parts to a processor, and each unit runs at a different clock rate, then the product of all their clocks would be an imaginary frequency that all clocks could be scheduled to. I’m using a semantically challenged argument to prove a clock on an unclocked processor.

Each unit does not have a clock at all though. Each unit can be built with components that themselves are clockless.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[Raystonn]

"How does a clockless processor determine how quickly it can perform a task?"

In general it does not do this. If you need to know about the 'average' speed of an operation you can run it a few million times and average the results. Any particular instruction is not guaranteed to take the same amount of time every time you execute it.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[Raystonn]

"that means in any given complex instruction set the cpu will run as fast as the slowest internal operation."

Correct. This is instead of every operation being based off a clockrate that is tuned to the slowest step in the pipeline.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[somerandomguy]

Hmmm...I still don't understand.

To the transistors just switch whenever they have inputs? How long does the switch take, and what factors is that speed dependent on? The quality of the fabrication?

"Ignorance is bliss, but I tend to get screwed over."

 

[Raystonn]

The modules work when they get an input signal and send a signal when they have output. It would be entirely event-driven.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[somerandomguy]

So each module has it's own clock, which can be set faster or slower than the other modules clocks depending on its characteristics?

"Ignorance is bliss, but I tend to get screwed over."

 

[starwrs3]

if intel comes out with a clockless processor it will lose it only selling point megahz and gigahz think about that one

 

[Schmide]

Alright last chance to prove a clock on a clockless processor. Let there be a discrete number of operations preformed by the clocklesss processor. Each operation takes a discrete amount of time to complete. Their exists a divisor such that the timing of each operation can be represented by the product of an integer and that divisor. The effective clock rate is the inverse of that divisor.

Schmide

Thus the processor would effectively run at a very very large clock rate with a whole lot of wait states put in.

 

[Uncle_joe]

Ray,
regarding P4, I came upon an interesting article
<A HREF="http://www.emulators.com/pentium4.htm" target="_new">http://www.emulators.com/pentium4.htm</A>
I'm interested in your comment(s).
(i'm not trying to bash or troll, just asking opinion)




Breaking news: Intel hit by a SledgeHammer! AMD to blame! More in just a moment...

 

[Matisaro]

That article has been posted on this form more times than meltdown has posted BS.

Interesting rant though.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

 

[Raystonn]

No, modules do not have clocks. Nothing has a clock.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[Raystonn]

"Each operation takes a discrete amount of time to complete"

You never know how long an operation will take. Any number of modules may or may not be busy doing other things. Everything is event driven. Nothing waits for a clock.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[jollygrinch]

[possibly dumb question] so if there's no clock to set the sync, would the limiting factor be the speed at which the slowest bus (channel, cable, whatever) can send the electrons? [/possibly dumb question]

no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end, when we all disintegrate, it'll all happen again.

 

[somerandomguy]

If the modules do not have clocks, what factors determine how fast the transistors in that module can switch from one state to another? Their size? The speed of light? Or am I missing something important?

"Ignorance is bliss, but I tend to get screwed over."

 

[Raystonn]

About what in particular did you want me to comment. It is a large article.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =