[Beowulf] Power8

[Prentice Bisbal]

On 04/30/2014 10:02 AM, Prentice Bisbal wrote:
>
> On 04/30/2014 02:25 AM, Bill Broadley wrote:
>>
>> * will 3rd parties like nvidia be able to do something compelling with
>> cache coherent access to main memory?
>
> This seems very likely, as NVidia is part of the founding members of 
> the OpenPOWER consortium and IBM and NVidia announced plans to 
> integrate POWER processors and Tesla GPUs at SC13:
>
> http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/Releases/IBM-NVIDIA-to-Supercharge-Corporate-Data-Center-Applications-and-Next-Generation-Supercomputers-a65.aspx 
>
>
> http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/41684.wss
>
> Since the POWER8 processor is part of the OpenPOWER initiative, it is 
> my understanding that any vendor should be able to license the POWER8 
> IP and extend it, similar to the ARM processor.
>

More on this topic from HPCwire:

"BM is making a big play in hybrid computing, seeking to marry its 
POWER8 processors with various kinds of accelerators and high-speed 
networking and opening up its chip and system software through the 
OpenPOWER Foundation. "

and

"IBM wants for all manner of accelerators to link very tightly with 
POWER8 processors and for scale-out clusters based on these chips to 
have the right kind of acceleration – be it a GPU, an FPGA, a DSP, or 
some other component – necessary for their particular jobs."

http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/04/23/power8-openpower-might-mean-hpc/