Here's an interesting development

[unixronin]

Amid continuing problems getting its four-core processors to market, it appears AMD will be repackaging four-core processors with minor faults on one core and selling them as triple-core processors.

Now tell me:  What was your first thought?

Yeah.  Mine was, "I wonder how long it's going to be before somebody hacks up a fault-tolerant Linux/BSD/whatever (or perhaps a completely custom OS) that runs a separate kernel thread on each core, with cross-checking and two-of-three majority voting?"

I mean, come on.  It's the obvious use for a triple-core processor.

Comments

[otherbill.livejournal.com]

My first thought was "Enh, that's just how the industry works."

As for the redundOS, are you talking about all three processors running the same instructions in lock-step, or something more advanced?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yup, three processors running the exact same instructions in parallel and cross-checking each other. Triple redundancy. If any one device (processor core, in this case) gets a different result from the other two, the other two devices overrule it and throw a warning. If it can't be reconciled with the other two, the remaining two mark it failed and continue without it. It's been a standard technique for decades in military and space hardware for applications where you absolutely cannot afford errors.

(If all three devices differ, or if one device of the three has been marked failed and there is a second disagreement, the system is usually designed to panic and shut down.)