PAR · CPU ontology dimension
Parallelism Topology
CPU technology scales through lanes, issue slots, hardware threads, cores, chiplets, accelerators, and interconnect rather than through one bigger ALU alone.
parallelism appears as lanes, slots, threads, cores, clusters, and fabrics
Multiplicity
Scalar
One main stream of work dominates the processor.
Superscalar Core
Multiple issue slots live inside one core before scaling out to more cores.
SIMD / Vector
One instruction operates across multiple data lanes.
SMT
Multiple hardware threads share one core's execution resources.
Multicore
Multiple cores cooperate through shared memory and interconnect.
Heterogeneous
Different core types or accelerators serve different work classes.
Fabric
Single Bus
A shared bus or simple crossbar connects the machine.
Ring / Mesh
Modern cores and caches communicate over an on-chip network.
Chiplet
Multiple dies cooperate across package-level links.