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BlueGene/L
- The next generation of scalable computing platform
BlueGene/L is a next-generation
massively-parallel computing system designed for research and development
into computational science targeted at selected applications of interest
to the ASCI Tri-Lab community and its University Alliance partners.
A select but broad set of science application areas have been identified
as an initial focus for execution on BlueGene/L. BlueGene/L is a scalable
ultra-computer targeted for 216 = 65,536 compute nodes. Each node consists
of a single compute ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) and
SDRAM-DDR memory chips. The nodes are interconnected through multiple
networks, one of which connects nearest neighbors, mapping the nodes
into a 64x32x32 three-dimensional torus. The ASIC that powers the nodes
is based on IBM's system-on-a-chip technology giving a very compact,
low-power building block that is being used to create an extremely high
compute-density system with very attractive cost performance. BlueGene/L
is a cellular architecture in that the 512-node basic building block
of the system can replicated in a regular pattern, with no introduction
of bottlenecks as the system is scaled up. In many cases, one CPU of
each dual-CPU node will be devoted to communications processing, yielding
a nominal peak performance of more than 2.8 teraFLOP/s in a single cabinet,
or more than 180 teraFLOP/s for the full system. For select applications
that can effectively utilize both CPUs, the peak system performance
will be over 360 teraFLOP/s. A teraFLOP/s is a trillion floating-point
operations per second. At 360 teraFLOP/s, every man, woman and child
on the face of the earth would need to perform about 60,000 calculations
per second to equal this prodigious computational rate. Each set of
64 computing nodes attaches to a dedicated dual-processor I/O node for
handling of communications. Using Gigabit Ethernet, a full system of
1,024 I/O nodes has the capability to drive up to 1 terabit/s of bi-directional
bandwidth to disk or other resources. At 1 terabit/s, it would be possible
to transmit the equivalent of the book collection of the Library of
Congress in about three minutes.
URL links:
LLNL public web site for BlueGene/L
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