Anton Shilov writes that the evolution of Intel MIC micro-architecture will be slower compared to the company’s traditional processors for servers. Instead, the chipmaker will update MIC-based products once in eighteen or even twenty four months.
Designed specifically to compete against highly-parallel graphics processing units (GPUs) from Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia Corp., Intel MIC products will not need updates every twelve months since neither of the rivals introduce brand-new HPC solutions every year. Moreover, since MIC products should not be necessarily cost-efficient and their adopters require major performance increases from generation to generation, it may not make a lot of sense in shrinking them without adding major improvements.
Intel’s first MIC-series products is expected to be code-named Knights Corner. The chips will reportedly feature more than fifty simplistic x86 cores made using 22nm fabrication process and should be released in 2012.
