high-performance computing
Future processing technologies
In the second article in his series on future hardware for HPC, Robert
Roe looks at alternatives to the x86, including server on a chip and OpenPower
P
ushing the limits of processor technology is necessary if the industry wishes to achieve exascale
computing. Tis has led people to explore alternative processing technologies that could rival the x86 – the technology that has dominated HPC over the past five years. Te Japanese company NEC
has a mainframe that can support large single-core bandwidth; ARM, based in the UK and with a history in the mobile market, has been developing its technology and soſtware ecosystem to the point where it is becoming a real alternative to more conventional HPC technology. In addition to these technologies, the IBM OpenPower group has gained arguably the most momentum of any new architecture as it was recently awarded two of the three main contracts in the US Coral programme. In early 2014, the US
Department of Energy (DOE) brought together several of its
www.scientific-computing.com l Power-efficient chips from mobile and embedded applications could underpin exascale technology
national laboratories in the joint Collaboration of Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Lawrence Livermore (Coral) to coordinate investments in supercomputing technologies, streamline procurement and reduce costs, with the aim of developing supercomputers that will be five to seven times more powerful when fully deployed than today’s fastest systems. Te computers are expected to be online by 2018 at a cost in excess of $600 million. Te two IBM Open Power machines will cost around $325 million and will make use of IBM Power Architecture, Nvidia’s Volta GPU, and Mellanox’s interconnect technologies. But from ARM to IBM, all these
technologies, however different on the surface, represent the
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efforts of the HPC industry to modify the current generation of HPC technology to better adapt to the demands of data-centric workloads that have increased dramatically over the last few years.
IBM, for example, worked with
Nvidia to develop the NVLink interconnect technology, which will enable CPUs and GPUs to exchange data five to 12 times faster than they can today. NVLink will be integrated into IBM Power CPUs and next- generation Nvidia GPUs based on the Volta architecture, allowing the new national lab systems to achieve performance levels far exceeding today’s machines. With Mellanox, IBM is implementing a state-of-the-art interconnect that
ENERGY
EFFICIENCY AS WELL AS THE ABILITY TO HANDLE LARGE AMOUNTS OF DATA ARE PRIMARY CONCERNS
incorporates built-in intelligence, to improve data handling. All of these technologies
are aimed at increasing data throughput across the computational cores; moreover the incorporation of OpenPower technologies into a modular integrated system will enable Lawrence Livermore and Oak
APRIL/MAY 2015 17
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ARM
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