It might be time to change our way of thinking about processor speed. Now Intel is hinting at processors with 32 cores available by the end of this decade. Sure, the company predicted 20GHz chips by 2010 a few years ago, but now instead of higher gigahertz numbers, they're talking multiple cores that will result in a processor that will be 15 times faster than today's quickest chips.
Intel has assigned the pet name "Keifer" to the many-core processor project in general and "Gulftown" specifically to its 32-core processor that will be manufactured using a 32nm process, and it will include eight processing nodes, each with four cores. The jaw-dropper is that each one of these cores will be running at a paltry 2GHz, but since there are 32 of them, they'll leave today's processors in the dust. That is, unless Intel thinks of something else between now and then, which wouldn't be all that unusual.