DUAL CORE TECHNOLOGY

What is DualCore
Dual-core refers to a CPU that includes two complete execution cores per physical processors. It has combined two processors and their caches and cache controllers onto a single integrated circ(silicon chip). Dual core processors are well-suited for multitasking environments because there are two complete execution cores instead of one, each with an independent interface to the front side bus.

How Dual core developed??

Dual core processor is the developed version of Pentium 4 processor. We can call it as two processor in one chipset. It require a new chipset for its working i945 and i955. This developed version gives double the speed of other processors. . Dual-core processors provide two complete execution cores instead of one, each with an independent interface to the front side bus

Pentium 4 and Dual Core

Pentium D is a Pentium 4 with dual-core technology. But there is a very important difference between Pentium 4 and Pentium D besides this new technology. The new Pentium D doesn't have Hyper Threading technology. . Hyper Threading makes the operating system to think that there are two CPUs installed on the system. Thus, when you use a Pentium 4 with this technology, Windows XP recognizes it as if two CPUs were installed on the system.

Look inside Dual core

The most interesting thing about Intel's dual core tecnology is how it is manufactured. With the tecnology available today for manufacturing processors, called 90 nm, the silicon chips for dual core CPUs must be "together", i.e. side-by-side and cut together from the wafer. With the future 65 nm technology it is possible to manufacture each silicon chip separately and then put them together, i.e. it will be possible to pick each silicon chip from different positions of the wafer, not requiring them to be originally together. This manufacturing process is more efficient .

Dual core working.

New chipet with Dual core processor.

Chipset for Dual core.

Dual core requires different chipset for its funtioning. Together with these two new processors two new chipset series were released, i945 and i955. The current Intel chipsets aren't compatible with dual core technology because they don't support multiprocessor systems. So, even if you have a high-end socket 775 motherboard based on the latest Intel 925X chipset it won't be compatible with the new dual-core Pentium processors. To upgrade your system you will need to replace the motherboard as well.

Block Diagram

Different models of Dual core

There are Three Pentium D models were announced: Pentium D 820: 2.8 GHz, 1 MB L2 memory cache for each core Pentium D 830: 3.0 GHz, 1 MB L2 memory cache for each core.

Pentium D 840: 3.2 GHz, 1 MB L2 memory cache for each core. All of them use a 800 MHz external bus and use the Intel 64-bit extensions (EM64T), so they are based on Pentium 4 6xx series.

Dual core vs core Duo

Core duo is Intels first Dual core CPU. Its a whole new architecture of Microsoft using 2 core in a single die which gives simply 2 core in a single chip.Instead of other CPU itconserves substantially power vs retcheting clock speed giving unbelievable performance. In case of Core 2 Duo There is no big difference in between them but it has some how faster clock pulse speed of abt 2.67 Ghz.It has a silicon lining which gives it more sophisticated processing abilities. Both are exist in desktop n laptop version.

Advantages.
The close proximity of multiple CPU cores on the same die has the advantage of allowing the cache coherency circuitry to operate at a much higher clock rate than is possible if the signals have to travel off-chip . a dual-core processor uses slightly less power than two coupled single-core processors, principally because of the increased power required to drive signals external to the chip and because the smaller silicon process geometry allows the cores to operate at lower voltages; such reduction reduces latency.

Disadvanages.
Dual core has more processing power and they are incapable of using 2 processor at a time. For upgradation to Dual core we have to replace the chipset.

About Thread level parallelism

Complete optimization for the dual-core processor requires both the operating system and application running on the computer to support a technology called thread-level parallelism, or TLP. Thread-level parallelism is the part of the OS or application that runs multiple threads simultaneously, where threads refer to the part of a programs that can execute independently of other parts.

AMD Dual processors.

AMD also announced its line of desktop dual-core processors, the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor family. The initial model numbers in the new family include the 4200+, 4400+, 4600+ and 4800+ (2.2GHz to 2.4GHz).The processors are based on AMD64 technology and are compatible with the existing base of x86 software, whether singlethreaded or multithreaded. Software applications will be able to support AMD64 dual-core processors with a simple BIOS upgrade and no substantial code changes

CONCLUSION
Dual core processor is the innovation in Microprocessors and this shows the future for Multi core processors.