Author: Daniel Pineo
Date: 18:18:38 04/05/05
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On April 05, 2005 at 15:31:39, Jonas Cohonas wrote: >I don't know if this has already been discussed, but in case it has i missed it >:) > >http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/chips/0,39020354,39187097,00.htm > >I know that these new technologies are often hyped up, but the fact that it will >be in production soon seems to suggest there is more to the story. This must be the PowerNP network processor. Also, look at the Intel IXP2400. This stuff has been used in high-speed networking equipment for years. I suppose when the telecommunications industry tanked IBM started looking around for another place for their technology. It would take a bit of thought to make this work for computer chess. Network processors are designed to work like a pipeline. Each microengine does a small amount of work on a packet and then passes it on to the next microengine. Obviously this won't work too well for chess. It could be possible make each microengine run a separate thread with a parallel search, but all the necessary code would have to fit into the microengines. The Intel microengines could only hold 4k of code IIRC. Finally, the microengines have a more restrictive instruction set than a full engine, so don't count on BSF or any MMX/SSE/Altivec tricks.
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