You are probably wondering what Pollack’s Rule is . Perhaps because you have come here out of curiosity or because you have simply seen this term somewhere else and wanted to know about it. The truth is that there is not much information on blogs, but here you can learn everything you need to know about this rule and how it affects the semiconductor industry .
What is Pollack’s Rule?
Fred Pollack is the creator of this Pollack rule . Pollack was an Intel engineer who predicted that microprocessor performance is tied to complexity. Therefore, it advances more or less according to the square root of the increase in complexity (transistor count or die surface).
P = ≅ √Area of the die
While the increase in energy consumption would be approximately linear with respect to complexity. That is, it would grow equally. For this reason, when Intel reached its frequency limit in the Pentium 4, another alternative was proposed to continue increasing performance, since the increase in the depth of the pipeline increased the number of transistors necessary to continue increasing the frequency, and the performance / consumption ratio began to be not good.
Pollack’s rule began to have less relevance with the appearance of multicore systems . The philosophy of implementing several simpler/efficient cores and not just one of extreme complexity, led to an increase in performance and to keep consumption more or less controlled if it is accompanied by improvements in manufacturing technology.
Moore ‘s Law estimates that with each new generation the number of transistors doubled and performance increased by 40%. While Pollack’s rule ensures that with each new microarchitecture a performance of 40% can be gained theoretically . But that is not the case in practice, as upgrading new architectures is no longer so easy. So now this rule, given multicore designs, is of little relevance.
More about Fred Pollack
Fred Pollack is now retired, but he was one of the main electronic engineers involved in the development of many Intel chips. In fact, he led the design of the Intel iAPX 432, as well as the leader of the Intel i960 project and the famous Pentium Pro, that microprocessor that included the CPU and the cache memory on two chips in the same package.
Pollack specialized in superscalability , hence he devised the famous Pollack Rule described above and how important it has been within the industry of the sector, not only for the Intel company, but also for the rest and, especially, for devices multicore.
In addition, it must be said that Pollack stayed for many years at Intel. That was his home until he retired in 2001 .
We recommend reading our guide on the best processors on the market .
Now you know a little more about the famous Pollack Rule, who is its creator and what determines it within this complex and competitive industry. Do not forget to leave your comments…
