Pam Frost Gorder, “Multicore Processors for Science and Engineering”, IEEE Computing in Science and Engineering, March/April 2007, pp3–7

A very informal review/introduction to the possible impact of the modern multicore CPUs such as Intel Core 2 Duo and IBM Cell processor. The subject of the paper becomes especially significant in the context of Intel’s demonstration of the 80 core CPU:

http://www.intel.com/research/platform/terascale/teraflops.htm?iid=homepage+80core

I think the development of these processors is going to change the way we look at electromagnetic problems. Currently, when we try to solve an EM problem, we formulate into some integral equation, then discretize it using MoM and then we develop the algorithms to solve it efficiently. I think this must change: I propose that after formulating the integral equation and before discretization, we will have to look at the architecture of the system where it is going to be solved. We will have to tailor our discretization and solution methodologies to match the architecture.

This is a paper worth reading for an overview. Thanks to my colleague and friend, Dr. Andy Mathis for getting me a copy of it.