Definition
Multi-Core Processor
A multi-core processor integrates multiple independent processor cores on a single chip, each capable of executing a separate thread.
Architecture
Each core has its own pipeline, register file, and L1 caches. Cores typically share higher-level caches (L2, L3) and main memory interfaces.
Cores may be identical (homogeneous) or specialised for different workloads (heterogeneous, e.g. performance vs efficiency cores).
TLP
A multi-core processor exploits thread-level parallelism by running independent threads in parallel across cores. This increases system throughput without requiring each individual thread to expose enough ILP to saturate a wide single core.
Modern platforms often combine multi-core with per-core hardware multi-threading, scaling both across cores and within each core.