Intel plans terabyte chip

Intel has built a prototype processor equipped with 80 cores which can exchange data at one terabyte (1TB) per second.

Intel chief executive officer Paul Otellini showed off the prototype during a keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum in the US this week.

The company aims to offer the chips commercially within five years, he said.

Intel is currently readying the launch of a commercial four-core chip solution, illustrating the step-up in processing speeds Otellini referred to in his address..

Intel's prototype chip uses 80 floating-point cores, with each of these running at 3.16GHz.

To move the data between the cores and into the system’s memory, Intel plans to use an on-board interconnect fabric and static RAM chips attached to the bottom of the new chips.

The company’s new quad-core chips are expected to be available this November.