Intel has unveiled a Terra-Scale Computer research programme on the eve of its Developer Forum in San Francisco that aims to prepare the world for multi-core processors. 

The initiative will tackle the problems posed by systems powered by processors with tens and hundreds of processor cores.

Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel, touted multi-core processors at a press briefing on Monday as a way to increase computing power.

"We see multi-core as an opportunity to get back on the traditional growth lines that we began to shift away from given the difficulty of delivering more instruction-level parallelism and increasing processor speeds," he said. " Multi-core is a very effective way to get more performance with less energy."

Dual-core processors are readily available today and Intel is expected to unveil its first quad-core chip later this week.

But Rattner warned that semiconductor manufacturers will run into problems when they go beyond eight processor cores because of the overhead required to manage the cores.

The Terra-Scale programme spans more than 80 research projects, ranging from building software that optimally uses multi-core processors, to hardware research on how to increase the bandwidth to access memory.

"It made more sense for Intel to get really serious about this now, rather than when the technology becomes available to build these processors. Then we have the technology to answer those questions," said Rattner.

• During the Intel Developer Forum in July last year, vnunet.com published an interview with Justin Rattner about the effects of multi-core processors on the future of computing.