UK scientists unveil new chip to make desktops 20 times faster

In a major technological breakthrough, a team of scientists led by the University of Glasgow has unveiled an ultra-fast chip which they claim could make desktop computers 20 times faster than the current ones.

The team has developed a central processing unit that will have 1,000 cores on a single microchip to help usher in a new age of high-speed computing in the next few years for home users who are frustrated with slow-running machines.

Typically, modern computers have a processor with 2, 4 or 16 cores to carry out tasks.

Its developers say the new “super” computer is also much greener than modern machines despite its high speed.

The scientists used a chip called a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) which like all microchips contains millions of transistors --tiny on-off switches that are the foundation of any electronic circuit, the Daily Mail reported.

But, FPGAs can be configured into specific circuits by the user, rather than their function being set at a factory, the report said. This enabled the team to divide up the transistors within the chip into small groups and ask each to perform a task.

By creating more than 1,000 minicircuits within the FPGA chip , the scientists effectively turned the chip into a 1,000-core processor -- each core working on its own instructions.