One of those unmistakable trends I mentioned in my last post – boutique processors – got one step closer to reality this week with Raytheon announcing the first tests with MONARCH processor silicon.

MONARCH stands for “morphable networked micro-architecture”, and according to Raytheon targets these key attributes:

A distributed processor architecture making the chip highly scalable and fault tolerant

Distributed inter-node communication for higher processing bandwidth and resource utilization

The ability to handle multiple computing models: Scalar Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), Wide Word and Streaming

System-on-a-chip (SOC) computing, which minimizes cost and area associated with peripheral components and improves power and volume efficiency

Reconfigurable computational array (morphability), which is dynamically tunable to meet application needs

The highest efficiency (GFLOPS/Watt; GFLOPS/m3) processing power

How fast is it? "In laboratory testing MONARCH outperformed the Intel quad-core Xeon chip by a factor of 10," said Michael Vahey, Raytheon’s principal investigator for MONARCH.

I can’t wait to see Critical Embedded Systems showing up with this processor inside soon.