Rather than making processor faster and faster, the received practice now is to get extra performance by multiple cores. Recently I read a news item that said a start-up company was proposing to make the first 100 core CPU -- claiming that they would 'pip Intel to the post.' So rather than the MHz race we had in the '80s and '90s, we are now entering the multicore race. It seems to be that the multicore era is here to stay -- so we'd better get used to the idea.

Back in 2007, Intel announced to the public it's 80 core research chip. It made some programmers wonder how on earth a program be written to take advantage of so many cores. Writing for 2 or 4 cores seemed manageable, but 80 cores seemed unimaginable