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

[Vincent Diepeveen]

"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
>
>
> DARPA awards $20M to Nvidia to stretch "Achilles Heel" of advanced  
> computing:
> Power
>
> Processor-maker Nvidia will get chance to boost power chip output  
> from 1
> GFLOPS/watt to 75 GFLOPS/watt
>
> By Layer 8 on Fri, 12/14/12 - 2:43pm.
>
>
> DARPA Nvidia said this week it got a contract worth up to $20  
> million from
> the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop  
> chips for
> sensor systems that could bolster power output from today's 1  
> GFLOPS/watt  to
> 75 GFLOPS/watt.
>
> The five-year award was made under DARPA's Power Efficiency  
> Revolution For
> Embedded Computing Technologies or PERFECT program which aims to  
> produce a
> revolutionary approach to processing power efficiency which has  
> become the
> Achilles Heel of increased computational capability.
>
> NEWS: The weirdest, wackiest and coolest sci/tech stories of 2012
>
>> From DARPA: This approach includes near threshold voltage  
>> operation, massive
> heterogeneous processing concurrency, and novel architectural  
> developments
> combined with techniques to effectively utilize the resulting  
> concurrency and
> tolerate the resulting increased rate of soft errors.  The PERFECT  
> program
> will leverage anticipated industry fabrication geometry advances to  
> 7 nm.
> Research and development will specifically address embedded systems
> processing power efficiencies and performance, and are not  
> concerned with
> developments that focus on exascale processing issues.  No operational
> hardware is to be built in this program, instead a simulation  
> capability will
> be developed that will measure and demonstrate progress."
>
> In the past, computing systems could rely on increasing computing  
> performance
> with each processor generation.  Following Moore's Law, each  
> generation
> brought with it double the number of transistors.  And according to  
> Dennard's
> Scaling, clock speed could increase 40% each generation without  
> increasing
> power density.  This allowed increased performance without the  
> penalty of
> increased power, DARPA stated.
>
> DARPA said PERFECT system development will address five areas  
> including:
>
>     Architecture: to address hardware and software power efficiency
> innovation and development. Example areas anticipated for  
> development include
> near threshold voltage operation, heterogeneous massive concurrent
> architectural approaches, and novel hardware architectural  
> approaches such as
> new memory hierarchies, application-specialized cores, and data  
> movement
> minimizing techniques. At the software level, the goal is to develop
> technologies and techniques that tolerate and exploit new hardware
> capabilities and overcome the associated limitations. This  
> specifically will
> include addressing concurrency and reliability.
>
>     Concurrency : This element will address the hardware and  
> software to
> support high levels of concurrency - thousands to millions of  
> concurrent
> execution streams. Hardware efforts in this area may include  
> processing cores
> and data stores of varying capabilities and efficiencies and  
> perhaps include
> automatically synthesized processing elements that are optimized  
> for the
> embedded platform's workload. Software efforts in this area may  
> include
> language development or augmentation, compilers, and support  
> software to
> specify and manage concurrent threads.
>
>     Resiliency: Will focus on the issue of soft errors. Such errors  
> are
> expected to increase for near threshold voltage operation.
>
>     Locality: Will focus on minimizing run-time data communication by
> managing data location and availability. In particular, the memory  
> hierarchy
> and the software to manage data are included. Languages and language
> annotations that enable programmer control of data allocation as  
> well as
> automatic control of data allocation will be investigated.
>
>     Algorithms: Software techniques to minimize energy consumption. In
> addition, algorithmic approaches to enable the tolerance of  
> hardware faults
> will be investigated, at both the kernel and the system levels.
>
> Nvidia calls it program Project Osprey, and the company says it  
> will research
> low-power circuits and extremely efficient architectures and  
> programming
> systems that enable 75 gigaflops per watt, using process  
> technologies as
> advanced as 7 nanometer (nm) compared with today's 28-nm process.
>
> Project Osprey will utilize the company's heterogeneous computing and
> parallel processing technology, which enable more efficient  
> processing than
> traditional CPUs, the firm says.  Nvidia said its  processors are  
> used in a
> wide variety of embedded applications, including automobiles made  
> by Audi,
> BMW, Tesla and Lamborghini, aircraft including the F-22 Raptor, and  
> US Army
> tanks.
>
>
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