What laboratory tool has made the most difference in research and development? Arguably, it's the personal computer. In the early days of computing, specialized clusters of high-performing processors were often needed for data-intensive tasks. But as chipmakers upheld Moore's Law, desktop machines and even laptops became powerful enough to handle complex design and processing tasks. Personal computers are ubiquitous and indispensible, but often are no longer powerful enough, even for daily research tasks such as processing a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Circumstances have conspired to force researchers to seek a better solution. As microprocessor speed has stalled, data volume has exploded. In 2004, according to Dave Turek, vice president of deep computing at IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y., computer scientists recognized the limits of microprocessor technology and realized the best avenue for more performance was to group large numbers of processors together and leverage strength in numbers. Multi-core was born.
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