Intel and AMD will never solve the problems of programming general purpose multi-core processors if they carry on with a shared memory approach, according to UK multi-processing experts.

"There's not a solution to the problem the way they are approaching it", Flemming Christensen, managing director of Sundance, told Electronics Weekly, "the whole concept of multi-processing using shared-memory is flawed."

Agreeing with Christensen, Peter Robinson, managing director of 3L, told Electronics Weekly. "People want to take code written for uniprocessors and magically turn it into something that will run on multiple processors and can be made to run as fast as you like just by throwing more processors at it. This is nonsense",

"The Dual Core approach running on Windows is to have completely separate programmes running on different processors", added Robertson, "it hasn't solved the problem of getting one programme to run faster."

"The approach of Flemming and I is that you have to recognise you need a vast number of processors, only some of which talk to each other, and none of which talk to the whole system", said Robertson, "and then you have to write the programme in such a way that the bits that need to talk to each other, do talk to each other. You have to break the problems down, then you have a hope of distributing them across the processors."

Last week, Chris Rowen, CEO of multi-processor specialist Tensilica, said: "The challenge of writing software for programming general purpose computing applications is generally recognised in the scientific computing community as the biggest single unsolved, and perhaps unsolvable, computing problem."

Will Intel and AMD ever get there? "They'll suddenly realise where they've been going wrong and take the right approach and then they'll say they invented it", replied Robertson, "I suspect Intel are doing it already, they're just too embarrassed to admit it."

See also: Electronics Weekly's focus on microprocessors, a roundup of content related to x86 microprocessor technologies and developments.

See also: Mannerisms, the blog of David Manners. Updated twice daily, it's the distinctive, entertaining, authoritative and never dull commentary on the semiconductor industry, from someone who knows...