A Future Prediction: Multi-core Design

In predicting the future, my gut feel prediction was that we would see 1024 cores in ~ 10 years. I decided to research this aspect of the prediction. I have found a number of very interesting links and will summarize here.

First, Intel has demonstrated a working 80-core processor, and a company called ClearSpeed has shown a 96-core. In both cases these cores are on a single chip. Here is the article. The article notes several issues that need to be resolved. First, the chips do not run the x86 instruction set - which is very popular today. Second, how memory interfaces with these chips needs to be resolved. Third, figuring out how to allow developers to leverage these chips in terms of parallel programming needs to be address. The third issue has shown itself as an issue in several other posts...

So, when will the 80-core be mainstream? Intel notes that 80-core should be available in 5 years [article]. Given the complexity of the manufacturing process, my gut feels says that is about right.

So - what does this mean to my prediction? Base on this new data, I think that my gut feel may have been overly aggressive. I would like to change my data based prediction to one of the following. In 10 years we will hit 512 core processors, or in 15 years we may see 1024. The 10 year/512 core also lines up better with the data from MIT that was blogged upon earlier.