Arm processor achieves dual 384 cores: Linux system cannot handle it anymore

The product with the highest number of cores in the x86 camp is the AMD EPYC 9004 series, with a maximum of 128 cores in a single channel and 256 cores in a dual channel, which perfectly meets the upper limit of Linux.

To this end, Ampere has submitted a new patch to the Linux kernel using a method called "CPUMASK-OFFSTACK", which can be simply understood as a mapping relationship to bypass the limit on the number of cores.

The most crucial thing is that this method does not add too much burden to the Linux kernel image, as each core only requires 8KB files.

Of course, the fundamental solution to the problem is still to wait for the Linux kernel upgrade, native support for more cores, and it is expected to wait until next year's Linux version 6.8.

In fact, as early as 2001, someone submitted a patch hoping to increase the number of processor cores supported by Linux to 512, but it was rejected by the maintainer as unnecessary.

The AmpereOne processor is based on TSMC's 5nm technology, Armv8.6+is sufficient, and has different configurations such as 136/144/160176/192 cores.

Each core has two 128 bit vector units, 2MB secondary cache, 3GHz main frequency, supports eight channel DDR5, 128 PCIe 5.0, and thermal design power consumption ranging from 200-350W.