Intel buying multi-core software companies

Giant chip-maker Intel has been buying up  specialty software companies in an effort to gain additional expertise in writing software for the multi-core processors that make up most of their lineup of CPUs.

The first of these was actually back in June, making for a total of three, when Intel purchased Wind River Systems, who wrote software for imbedded devices. Then, at the end of last month, they purchased Clik, a multi-core processing specialist software maker and vendor of Clik++. Now they have acquired Rapidmind, another company specializing in tools for the production of multi-core processing, according to a CNET article. Both more recent acquisitions produce software tools aimed at making multi-core coding easier.

By way of explanation, chief evangelist and director of marketing and sales at Intel James Reinders said Friday, “Over the last few years, there has been a gradual emergence of multicore microprocessors. It’s put parallelism in more and more machines. If you look at traditional applications, ones that we use everyday, it’s fair to say that most are not exploiting parallelism–at least not to the full extent.”

Multi-core processors have two or more independent cores (or CPUs). The cores are typically integrated onto a single integrated circuit die (known as a chip multiprocessor or CMP), or they may be integrated onto multiple dies in a single chip package. A dual-core processor contains two cores, and a quad-core processor contains four cores. A multi-core processor implements multiprocessing in a single physical package. Cores in a multi-core device may be coupled together tightly or loosely.

Explaining the Intel view of operating systems, Reinders says, “The operating system does stuff for applications in parallel. But considering that we can produce more and more cores every year, to truly get the benefit of what the future holds, applications need to change. And most applications haven’t changed.”

In buying Clik and Rapidmind, Intel is working to maximize the use of its multi-core processors in more applications, thus making them more valuable to customers.  Reinders explained where the companies come into the Intel master plan by saying, “How do we help software developers tackle parallel programming? Both companies had teams of experts that had been focused on this problem. So, they’re kindred spirits.”

Reinders is correct that most of the time, in most machines, the multi-core aspect of their processors is wasted. The bulk of applications have not taken advantage of using more than one core on processors that support doing so. It is generally very complex work. The two companies recently acquired by Intel produce software that makes multi-core coding easier, which will in the long run make all of our computers more efficient.

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