WASHINGTON, DC - 06 Sep 2006: The U.S. Department of
Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has selected IBM to
design and build the world's first supercomputer to harness the immense power of
the Cell Broadband Engineâ„¢ (Cell B.E.) processor aiming to produce a machine
capable of a sustained speed of up to 1,000 trillion calculations per second, or
one petaflop.
The 'hybrid' supercomputer, codenamed Roadrunner, will be installed at DOE's
Los Alamos National Laboratory. In a first-of-a-kind design, Cell B.E. chips --
originally designed for video game platforms -- will work in conjunction with
systems based on x86 processors from Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD).
Designed specifically to handle a broad spectrum of scientific and commercial
applications, the supercomputer design will include new, highly sophisticated
software to orchestrate over 16,000 AMD Opteronâ„¢ processor cores and over 16,000
Cell B.E. processors in tackling some of the most challenging problems in
computing today. The revolutionary supercomputer will be capable of a peak
performance of over 1.6 petaflops (or 1.6 thousand trillion calculations per
second).
The machine is to be built entirely from commercially available hardware and
based on the Linux® operating system. IBM® System x™ 3755 servers based on AMD
Opteron technology will be deployed in conjunction with IBM BladeCenter® H
systems with Cell B.E. technology. Each system used is designed specifically for
high performance implementations.
Designed also with space and power consumption issues in mind, the system
will employ advanced cooling and power management technologies and will occupy
only 12,000 square feet of floor space, or approximately the size of three
basketball courts.
New Era of Industry Supercomputing
Roadrunner's construction will involve the creation of advanced "Hybrid
Programming" software which will orchestrate the Cell B.E.-based system and AMD
system and will inaugurate a new era of heterogeneous technology designs in
supercomputing. These innovations, created collaboratively among IBM and LANL
engineers will allow IBM to deploy mixed-technology systems to companies of all
sizes, spanning industries such as life sciences, financial services, automotive
and aerospace design.
How it Works
Roadrunner's hybrid design will allow the system to segment complex
mathematical equations, routing each segment to the part of the system that can
most efficiently handle it. Typical compute processes, file IO, and
communication activity will be handled by AMD Opteron processors while more
complex and repetitive elements -- ones that traditionally consume the majority
of supercomputer resources -- will be directed to the more than 16,000 Cell B.E.
processors. Designed originally for gaming platforms, where intense graphics and
real-time responsiveness are key, the Cell B.E. processor is ideal to speed
Roadrunner through intense mathematical problems.
"This new supercomputer demonstrates a commitment to achieve a major advance
in technological capability that will help enable scientists and businesses
solve the most challenging problems," said Bill Zeitler, senior vice president,
IBM Systems and Technology Group. "Los Alamos is a valued partner as we embark
on this exciting journey."
"This installation with Los Alamos and IBM demonstrates the compelling
benefits from industry leaders innovating around an open platform; in this case
IBM and AMD collaborating in the use of AMD Opteron and the Cell B.E. processor
to build powerful systems for highly specific Los Alamos Labs workloads," said
Marty Seyer, senior vice president, Commercial Segment, AMD. "This is an
excellent demonstration of Torrenza in action -- building on the performance and
performance-per-watt advantages AMD delivers to create incredible value in
leveraging HyperTransport technology to redefine how different systems, based on
different processor platforms, can communicate with each other to solve some of
the most complex computing problems."
IBM will begin shipping the new supercomputer to the DOE facility at the Los
Alamos National Laboratory later this year, with completion of the installation
and acceptance anticipated in 2008.
Based on the Power Architectureâ„¢, the Cell B.E. processor was developed in
collaboration with IBM, Sony Corporation, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (Sony
and Sony Computer Entertainment collectively referred to as Sony Group), and
Toshiba Corporation. |