Chip makers turn to multicore processors

Computer performance has been driven largely by decreasing the size of chips while increasing the number of transistors they contain. In accordance with Moore´s law, this has caused chip speeds to rise and prices to drop. This ongoing trend has driven much of the computing industry for years. Manufacturers are building chips with multiple cooler-running, more energy-efficient processing cores instead of one increasingly powerful core. The multicore chips don´t necessarily run as fast as the highest performing single-core models, but they improve overall performance by handling more work in parallel. Multicores are a way to extend Moore´s law so that the user gets more performance out of a piece of silicon. Chip makers AMD, IBM, Intel, and Sun are now introducing multicore chips for servers, desktops, and laptops.