SSE4 adds CRC32 and string instructions
I have written a few times before about how standard microprocessors are increasing in power very quickly. This morning, I was scanning a whitepaper from Intel about upcoming SSE4 instruction set additions. In addition to some string searching instructions that could improve the performance of everything from databases to virus scanners to intrusion detection systems, Intel has also included a CRC32 instruction. CRC32 is used a lot as an error detection technique on low-level communication protocols. For instance, the data of every Ethernet or WiFi frame is protected by a CRC32. The addition of this instruction to the x86 instruction set is significant as it is a recognition that data communications is an important application area, whether for a server or a piece of network infrastructure. As I have stated before, commodity silicon continues to grow more powerful...
posted by Dave Roberts at 9:36 AM
2 Comments:
It is worth noting that CRC32C is used by iSCSI (SCSI over IP), SCTP, and other network protocols. This checksum is used because it detects errors much more reliably than the traditional one's complement 16 bit checksum used by TCP and UDP.
The advantage of the latter is that it can be computed much faster without special hardware support. The CRC32 instruction will remedy that deficiency very nicely.
o you need lots of x86s to compete if you want parallel processing pipeline architectures. Multicore chips look interesting.
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