Introduction to High-Performance Computing Using MPI - High-Throughput Image Reconstruction and Analysis - page 106

Figure 5.1 The number of transistors in a chip has continued to double every 2 years. According to
estimates, this trend will continue in the future at least until 2010. (Courtesy of Timothy J. Dalton,
IBM Corp.)
was the fastest supercomputer in the world from 2002 until 2004. It comprised
640 nodes, each with eight processors (i.e., a total of 5,120 processors) operat-
ing at 500 MHz. In comparison, the IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer, which was
the fastest supercomputer from 2004 until 2007, was made of 212,992 proces-
sors operating at 700 MHz. Future supercomputers are likely to have millions of
processors, operating at similar clock frequencies.
These two trends of transistor density and clock frequency improvements have
very important implications for the future of computing in general, and paral-
lel computing in particular. Unlike in the past, performance improvements in the
Figure 5.2 Due to increasing power consumption and cooling limitations, the chip frequencies
cannot continue to increase at the rates witnessed historically. These are expected to stabilize in the
range 1 to 10 GHz. In massively parallel multicore systems, the frequencies may actually decrease
in the future. (Courtesy of Timothy J. Dalton, IBM Corp.)