[Beowulf] DARPA issues 20 MUSD grant to nVidia to go from 1 GFLOPS/Watt to 75 GFLOPS/Watt

[Vincent Diepeveen]

On Dec 17, 2012, at 6:27 PM, Lux, Jim (337C) wrote:

> That could be a notional 1 GFLOP/Watt in a fielded system.

Even linpack is 70% - 80% efficient on this so should get out oh  
let's use a conservative 4.5 flops/watt effectively at codes.

Note that (to my big surprise) it seems to be the case that the gpu's  
are effectively getting higher efficiency than Xeon Phi here.

> The original documents for PERFECT are probably a year or two old  
> by now.. but what DARPA is looking for is a nearly 2 order of  
> magnitude improvement...  Whether they started at 1 or 1.4 or 6  
> really doesn't make much difference to what they're looking for.
>

Yeah well that 2 orders of a magnitude is just 1 order of a magnitude  
if we start at 6.

6 ==> 75 = factor 12

They speak about 7 nm technology in the accompanying document. That's  
a very conservative estimate,
obviously in theory even with todays 2 dimensional way of building  
(not to mention when things really get 3d),
we speak of a difference in theory of:

(28 / 7) ^ 2 = 4^2 = 16

Given enough time, engineers will get that factor 16 easily out of  
transition over the years from 28/32 nm to 7 nm.
Note that 7nm is still far beyond the horizon.

However if they would have needed to improve current design factor 75  
moving from 28/32 nm they use today to 7 nm,
that would be a complicated bet.

> In any case, it's a long way from a manufacturer's cut sheet to a  
> system installed in a tank bouncing through the woods..
>
>
> Jim Lux
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf- 
> bounces at beowulf.org] On Behalf Of Vincent Diepeveen
> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 5:50 AM
> To: Eugen Leitl
> Cc: Beowulf at beowulf.org; info at postbiota.org
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] DARPA issues 20 MUSD grant to nVidia to go  
> from 1 GFLOPS/Watt to 75 GFLOPS/Watt
>
> "todays 1 gflop/watt" ?
>
> The K20X delivers 1.4 Tflop nearly.
> If i google it's 235 watt TDP.
>
> 1.4 Tflop / 235 =  6 gflops/watt
>
> On Dec 17, 2012, at 2:21 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>
>>
>> http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/darpa-awards-20m-nvidia-
>> stretch-achilles-heel-advanced-computing-power
>>
>>
>