Making parallel computing easy to use has been described as "a problem as hard as any that computer science has faced". With such a big challenge ahead, we need to make sure that every programmer has access to cheap and open parallel hardware and development tools. Inspired by great hardware communities like Raspberry Pi and Arduino, we see a critical need for a truly open, high-performance computing platform that will close the knowledge gap in parallel programing. The goal of the Parallella project is to democratize access to parallel computing. If we can pull this off, who knows what kind of breakthrough applications could arise? Maybe some of them will even change the world in some small but positive way.
The Parallella Computing Platform
To make parallel computing ubiquitous, developers need access to a platform that is affordable, open, and easy to use. The goal of the Parallella project is to provide such a platform! The Parallella platform will be built on the following principles:
- Open Access: Absolutely no NDAs or special access needed! All architecture and SDK documents will be published on the web as soon as the Kickstarter project is funded.
- Open Source: The Parallella platform will be based on free open source development tools and libraries. All board design files will be provided as open source once the Parallella boards are released.
- Affordability: Hardware costs and SDK costs have always been a huge barrier to entry for developers looking to develop high performance applications. Our goal is to bring the Parallella high performance computer cost below $100, making it an affordable platform for all.
Parallella Computer Specifications
The following list shows the major components planned for the Parallella computer:
- Zynq-7010 Dual-core ARM A9 CPU
- Epiphany Multicore Accelerator (16 or 64 cores)
- 1GB RAM
- MicroSD Card
- USB 2.0 (two)
- Two general purpose expansion connectors
- Ethernet 10/100/1000
- HDMI connection
- Ships with Ubuntu OS
- Ships with free open source Epiphany development tools that include C compiler, multicore debugger, Eclipse IDE, OpenCL SDK/compiler, and run time libraries.
- Dimensions are 3.4'' x 2.1''
Once completed, the 64-core version of the Parallella computer would deliver over 90 GFLOPS of performance and would have the the horse power comparable to a theoretical 45 GHz CPU [64 CPU cores * 700MHz] on a board the size of a credit card while consuming only 5 Watts under typical work loads. For certain applications, this would provide raw performance than a high end server costing thousands of dollars and consuming 400W.
The Team Behind Parallella
The Parallella project is being launched by Adapteva, a semiconductor startup company founded in 2008. The core development team consists of Andreas Olofsson, Roman Trogan, and Yaniv Sapir, each with between 10 and 20 years of industry experience. The team has a strong reputation of executing on aggressive goals on a shoestring budget. Our latest Epiphany-IV processor was designed in a leading edge 28nm process and started sampling in July, demonstrating 50 GFLOPS/Watt. To put this in perspective, consider that the Epiphany energy efficiency specs are within striking distance of the 2018 goals set by DARPA for the high profile Exascale supercomputing project.
Parallella Computer Development Work
- All major IC components have already been selected for the Parallella board, but cost minimization will continue.
- We will be engaging with an experienced external board product design team to complete the design and layout of the Parallella boards.
- We will work with internal and external resources to seamlessly integrate the Epiphany coprocessor drivers and development tools with the Ubuntu distribution currently running on the reference platform.
Production
- Buying in bulk significantly reduces the cost of the platform. Without the large batch build enabled by this project, the cost of the Parallella boards would be many times higher.
Except for the Epiphany multiprocessor chips, the Parallella computer is a fairly standard ARM based low cost single board computer, giving us confidence that we will be able to meet our size and cost constraints.
It's Time
We don't have time to wait for the rest of the industry to come around to the fact that parallel computing is the only path forward and that we need to act now. We hope you will join us in our mission to change the way computers are built. We could put 1,000 cores on a single chip in two years. Are you ready for that?
What will come out of it? We don't know but we do know that the following applications are DESPERATE for more efficient processing and are stalling today because bigger companies aren't serving their needs.
Consumer: Small energy efficient computer media box console emulator movie rendering
Imaging: face detection/recognition, finger print matching, object tracking, stereo vision, gesture recognition, remote sensing, video-analytics, manufacturing inspection, augmented-overlay
Communication: video conferencing, network monitoring, deep packet inspection, software defined networking,
Automotive: autonomous driving, driver assist, fog penetration, glare reduction, holographic heads up display, intersection traffic monitor,
High Performance Computing: real-time internet stream analytics, real-time market analytics, portable in the field supercomputing, soft encryption engine, code breaker, data logger, in the field seismology processing
Medical: portable ultrasound, dna sequencing,
Robotics: robotics brain, space electronics, robotics sensor unit, multi sensor inertial navigation
Speech: real time speech recognition, realistic speech synthesis, real time translation, speaker verification
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: synthetic aperture radar, hyperspectral imaging, IR imaging, smart stream compression, large focal array sensor imaging, autonomous flight,
Wireless Communication: GNU radio, cognitive radio, small cell base stations
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