Parallel Processing Progress

Why has Parallel Processing started to take off in the last few years? I remember all of the hoopla around 15 or 20 years ago about what an impact it was going to have. Then interest subsided some what as there were claims of difficulty with software & programming,

Now it has made a comeback, I have read of near miraculous applications & it should deliver great advances with AI innovations. So I ask again, why is it finally starting to work out?

Joel

Reply to
forex10
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  • Cheap massproduced cpus. * FPGA is cheap and a workable solution with a standard language. * There's some physical limits on serial data processing.. (I expect 20 GHz cpu to see the daylight in less than 15 years thoe) * Improvement in programming methods?

Cost ratio of fast cpus vs many cheap cpus.

Reply to
pbdelete

Not to mention improved techniques to interface them.

I read somewhere the the huge problem with parallel processing is not the hardware but the software(the programming). But I already read somewhere recently that someone(maybe AMD) figured out a way to get around this. That is, instead of leaving it up to the programmers to have to handle the parallelization one could code for a single processor and it will run efficiently on any number of processors without any code change.

Reply to
Abstract Dissonance

Yeah, parallel folk always say that. It's like the 100-mpg carburetor that keeps turning up, even though nothing bigger than a lawnmower has used a carburetor in a looong time.

Efficient parallel algorithms are hard to make. In a given program, you may have lots of things that parallelize well, e.g. some types of loops, and still be unable to use all that horsepower. Amdahl's Law is highly relevant: if x% of your job has to be done serially, and 100-x% can be done in parallel, then no amount of parallelism can speed the job up by more than 100%/x. Building parallel algorithms is partly an exercise in reducing x.

None of this is to say that multicore CPUs are bad--if your OS is running 100 threads, on a 100-core machine they can each have a whole core. Thus, for example, IE can freeze up 3 cores rendering eye candy, and you can still play Pong on the other 97 simultaneously.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

In other words, tools.

Back in the early day, the tools (and platforms) were expensive, not many people could afford to play around with them and advance the field. As the h/w got cheaper, more people got access to it and were able to do R&D, build the required tools and optimize future hardware development.

The typical CS major in college today won't have too much trouble getting some time on the department's Beowulf cluster (if they don't lash one together in their dorm room).

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Reply to
Paul Hovnanian P.E.

IMO, they have almost reached the performance limits of the current technology (the cow "reduce size, decrease voltage and increase clock frequency" won't give much more milk) and now they are _forced_ to come up with really smarter ideas to keep progressing.

Best,

Reply to
Mochuelo

I well remember that hoopla and the nothing coming of it. Remember also at that time the aquiring of some small wisdoms that have held good since.

1]All announcements from the AI crowd are worthless and to be ignored. 2]All programmers talk about parallel processing is to be ignored. 3]All mentions by marketing people of 'near miracles' are to be ignored. 4]General purpose parrallel processing is nice to think of but is actually impossible.

That just leaves what little parallel processing there is, in the realms of massive number crunching (ie weather forecasts, bomb detonations etc), where each processor can work happily as one row/column element of a mathematical matrix. Nowadays much cheaper and simpler but nothing new!. john

Reply to
John Jardine.

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5] String theory :P (So I've been told..)

Tim

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Reply to
Tim Williams

Are we sure it really has? The technical press can have the "slow news day" effect like the popular press does.

The machine I'm typing this on is "multiple cored" but I wouldn't call it a real "parallel processor". The two CPUs are doing very different things.

Windows NT, is supposed to run on multiple processors. Again this isn't really parallel processing. One processor is used to make that stupid "Clippy" blink at you while another is graphically rendering the BSOD.

Many problems are very hard to spread across multiple CPUs. Others like doing optics "ray tracing" adn predicting air flow over a wing, are a natural for it. Parallel processors have been in steady use for that sort of job since the 1970s at least.

I've read that we will all have flying atomic powered cars by the year

2000. I look around and see that it didn't come true.

Prediction is hard, very hard if it is about the future.

That said, the main places I see it making advances are where it can extend from areas where it already has a foot hold. I expect that we will see it starting to show up in the high end of video games, CAD work stations and the like.

Parallel processors will just allow a bigger and bigger hammer to be used for AI. It won't suddenly cause all the programmers to invent screwdrivers and wrenches.

Again, maybe it isn't. Maybe some reporters got bored.

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Reply to
Ken Smith

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How about everyone is learning APL? There's a language that could use arrays of ALUs.

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Reply to
Ken Smith

We thought that Moore's law would come to an end earlier. Maybe now we're getting close though, as some have commented.

One of the main drivers though is the increasing trend to server virtualization, and the needs of specific-purpose applications, especially database engines, that are economically important enough to warrant the (huge) extra cost of software development.

I don't think that mainstream software development is even getting close to writing parallel applications however.

Reply to
Clifford Heath

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