<div>I'm really enjoying the PDF there, <a href="http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-183.pdf">http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-183.pdf</a>, particularly, the part about optimizing networks for applications. But the nice general interest takeaway is that list of Old Conventional Wisdom paired with New, that's fun. Thanks.
</div>
<div>Peter</div>
<div>Old CW: Power is free, transistors are expensive.</div>
<div>New CW: (from the pdf) The transistors are free, but the power is expensive because you can't afford to power all the transistors on the chip.</div>
<div>Synthesis: Power and Transistors are free, but Density is expensive.<br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/15/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Thomas H Dr Pierce</b> <<a href="mailto:TPierce@rohmhaas.com">TPierce@rohmhaas.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Dear Beowulf ML,</font> <br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Here is an interesting discussion on the methods and metrics that could apply to multicore chips and clusters.
</font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">I have not seen this discussed on the list, so it may be new to some.</font> <br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Here is the link to the overview wiki</font> <br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">
<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://view.eecs.berkeley.edu/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">http://view.eecs.berkeley.edu/wiki/Main_Page</a></font> <br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">
And motivation for people to go to the link: quote from the wiki</font>
<p><font size="2">"We believe that much can be learned by examining the success of parallelism at the extremes of the computing spectrum, namely embedded computing and high performance computing. This led us to frame the parallel landscape with seven question under the following assumptions:
</font>
<ul type="square">
<li><font size="2">The target should be 1000s of cores per chip, as this hardware is the most efficient in MIPS per watt, MIPS per area of silicon, and MIPS per development dollar. </font>
<li><font size="2">Instead of traditional benchmarks, use 7+ "</font><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://view.eecs.berkeley.edu/wiki/Dwarfs" target="_blank"><font size="2">dwarfs</font>
</a><font size="2">" to design and evaluate parallel programming models and architectures. (A dwarf is an algorithmic method that captures a pattern of computation and communication.) </font>
<li><font size="2">"Autotuners" should play a larger role than conventional compilers in translating parallel programs. </font>
<li><font size="2">To maximize programmer productivity, programming models should be independent of the number of processors. </font>
<li><font size="2">To maximize application efficiency, programming models should support a wide range of data types and successful models of parallelism: data-level parallelism, independent task parallelism, and instruction-level parallelism. "
</font></li></li></li></li></li></ul><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">And the detailed white paper that started his (Dec 2006) <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-183.html" target="_blank">
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-183.html</a></font> <br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">The "Seven Questions" discuss approaches to what seem to be standard discussions on cluster, parallel programming and best practices. Lots of fun for everyone!
</font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Applications </font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">1. What are the applications? </font><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">2. What are common kernels of the applications?
</font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Architecture and Hardware </font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">3. What are the HW building blocks? </font><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">4. How to connect them?
</font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Programming Model and Systems Software </font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">5. How to describe applications and kernels? </font><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">
6. How to program the hardware? </font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Evaluation </font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">7. How to measure success? </font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">------<br>
Sincerely,<br><br> Tom Pierce<br> </font>
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