Processor designer AMD is backing an organisation that aims to make its parts redundant. AMD is the first sponsor for OpenFPGA, a non-profit consortium developing high performance computing by running algorithms directly on FPGAs rather than processors.
The OpenFPGA steering group members include many of today's leaders in high-performance computing including Nallatech, Cray, GE Research, Oak Ridge National Labs and Sandia National Labs.
The focus for AMD in backing OpenFPGA is in the connectivity and the Torrenza programme to link to FPGA-based co-processors via its HyperTransport links.
“These activities in support of Torrenza represent fresh thinking in the application of open standards in creating collaborative research environments that can directly benefit customers,” said Michael Goddard, director, Performance Computing, AMD. “Academic customers are already seeing the results of the HyperTransport expertise the Mannheim COE can deliver, while OpenFPGA is leveraging best practices to provide a programming model for FPGAs, one of the co-processing technologies embraced by Torrenza. Ultimately, these efforts will further the adoption of HyperTransport technology and computing based on Direct Connect Architecture, offering new levels of stability and upgradeability in open environments such as AMD64.”
The HPC community has its own research centre that will start in January. The US NSF Centre for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC, pronounced "shreck") has been set up under the National Science Foundation to look at using the technology for signal and image processing, cryptology, communications processing, data and text mining, optimization, bioinformatics, and complex system simulations, for a variety of platform types, from leading-edge machines on earth to mission-critical machines in space.
The lead institution for CHREC is the University of Florida, with partner institution at the George Washington University, while industry research partners include NASA, Honeywell, Smiths Aerospace, Rockwell Collins, IBM Research, Sandia and Silicon Graphics Inc.
AMD is also setting up Mannheim Centre of Excellence (COE) with the Computer Architecture Group at the University of Mannheim in Germany, to research HyperTransport technology. As the only current academic licensee of coherent HyperTransport (cHT), the research at the Mannheim COE is expected to directly benefit the academic community and the development of next-generation technology that leverages HyperTransport. Early results from the Mannheim COE research include the release of an HTX board for universities and companies that research compute-intensive testing and design applications.
“The Mannheim Centre of Excellence has developed a strong expertise in computer architecture and hardware design, especially with the intellectual properties of HyperTransport,” said Dr Ulrich Bruning, head of the Centre. “The standardised, open access to HyperTransport gives us the ability to provide commercially available HTX boards that meet the needs of high-value data research for universities and companies all over the world. With AMD as a research partner, we see the Centre of Excellence as a unique opportunity to broaden the application areas of high performance processors.”
For more information, visit www.amd.com
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