Intel's new chip

Intel last week demonstrated a working processor with 80 individual processing cores. Each core, or "tile" as Intel calls them, consists of a compute element and a router that allows each tile to connect to its neighbor. The chip can deliver more than 1 trillion floating point operations per second (teraflops), depending on how fast it's running. This is only a research project right now, as there are a lot of challenges involved in making an 80-core chip that's a practical option for PCs and servers. Second picture shows a closer look of the processor chip which is still at research level even though it is demonstrated at media.

Dual Core

A dual core processor is a CPU with two separate cores(two processor logic units) on the same die, each with its own cache. It's the equivalent of getting two microprocessors in one.

In a single-core or traditional processor the CPU is fed strings of instructions it must order, execute, then selectively store in its cache for quick retrieval. When data outside the cache is required, it is retrieved through the system bus from random access memory (RAM) or from storage devices. Accessing these slows down performance to the maximum speed the bus, RAM or storage device will allow, which is far slower than the speed of the CPU. The situation is compounded when multi-tasking. In this case the processor must switch back and forth between two or more sets of data streams and programs. CPU resources are depleted and performance suffers.

In a dual core processor each core handles incoming data strings simultaneously to improve efficiency. Just as two heads are better than one, so are two hands. Now when one is executing the other can be accessing the system bus or executing its own code. Adding to this favorable scenario, both AMD and Intel's dual-core flagships are 64-bit.

To utilize a dual core processor, the operating system must be able to recognize multi-threading and the software must have simultaneous multi-threading technology (SMT) written into its code. SMT enables parallel multi-threading wherein the cores are served multi-threaded instructions in parallel. Without SMT the software will only recognize one core. Adobe Photoshop is an example of SMT-aware software. SMT is also used with multi-processor systems common to servers.

A dual core processor is different from a multi-processor system. In the latter there are two separate CPUs with their own resources. In the former, resources are shared and the cores reside on the same chip. A multi-processor system is faster than a system with a dual core processor, while a dual core system is faster than a single-core system, all else being equal.

HAN - Home Area Network with ZigBee

Some time ago we had only IR devices which controlled them remotely and made our living an ease. Today technology is evolving a new concept (HAN) to control our home appliances. ZigBee introduces a single standard which connects home environment where we can have a central base to control. With ZigBee HAN does not need the line-of-sight to operate the remote controllers. A single remote controller for all devices with learning of the introduction of new devices.

ZigBee Stack

ZigBEE advantage for community

The global primary energy demand will grow by 1.6 percent per year from 2004 to 2030. Worldwide electricity demand will rise to 30,116 billion kilowatt-hours in 2030, more than double the 2003 level. Today, ZigBee® is addressing global concern for substantially improved energy efficiency through an open and interoperable standard for demand response, energy management and metering services. This approach will increase energy efficiency in homes, commercial buildings and industrial facilities around the world to save energy.

ZigBee

Brief Overview

ZigBee is a PAN technology on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Unlike Bluetooth or wireless device, ZigBee devices have the ability to form a mesh network between nodes.

A mesh network is a local area network (LAN) that employs one of two connection arrangements, full mesh topology or partial mesh topology. A full mesh topology is shown in the picture. [A mesh network is reliable and offers redundancy. If one node is not available, all others can still communicate directly or through intermediate nodes.]


Recent news on ZigBee
When multiple ZigBee wireless personal area networks (WPANs) are in close proximity to each other, contentions and collisions in transmissions will lead to increased packet delays. However, there is no existing study on how delay performance would be affected in a crowded real-life environment where each person walking down a busy street would be wearing a ZigBee WPAN.

Experiment carried out in real a real world environment
To be pragmatic, we derived a mobility pattern from the analysis of a real-life video trace. Then, we estimated the delay performance from the video trace by combining data collected from ZigBee experiments. The results show that the 300 ms packet delay requirement will not be met for only 11% of the time. When failure occurs, it will last for an average duration of 1.4 s.

Bandwidth Monitor for ur Debian
This is a small bandwidth monitor. Monitors up to 16 interfaces and shows totals at the same time.
Here is the installation in Debian.

#apt-get install bmw

This installs the tool and try the following command to try it.

#bmw

For more information, look in man pages. The output of the above command is as follows.

Bandwidth Monitor 1.1.0

Iface RX(KB/sec) TX(KB/sec) Total(KB/sec)

lo 0.000 0.000 0.000

eth0 0.327 0.326 0.653

eth1 0.000 0.000 0.000

Total 0.327 0.326 0.653

Hit CTRL-C to end.

See, It's really easy. Now you can check ur bandwidth with no trouble. Try it & feel it. Bye. C u.

Latex is very important in document writing and it adds a greate deal of professionalism to your document. We normally get into troubles when inserting different symbols. Here I submit a reference for your convenience.

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/LaTeXPrimer/