Desktop Deployed Supercomputing

FPGA-computers in small to medium configurations

RIVYERA S3-5000 DDS has been created to deploy supercomputing to your desktop. It can be equipped with up to 4 RIVYERA FPGA-cards with e.g. 32 Spartan-3 5000 FPGAs. One or multiple I/O cables connect this FPGA-computer to an in-system off–the–shelf server based on an eATX mainboard. The low energy-consumption in combination with the improved bus-system makes the RIVYERA DDS a perfect choice for individuals and workgroups. Featuring RIVYERA scalability and APIs, a cluster setup can easily grow beyond a single machine when additional resources are needed. Code is 1:1 portable from RIVYERA DDS to any machine of the RIVYERA architectural family.

Main application areas include - but are not limited to - bioinformatics, financial computing, scientific or engineering simulation, cryptography, electrical engineering and many others.

Key features

Introducing Xilinx "Spartan" FPGAs

Todays general purpose processing units are designed to provide a processor which is optimized for general purpose applications. Which means that you have to optimize your code for the processor as it is physical predefined silicon which can not me modified to fit to your application. The Field Programmable Gate Array, in short "FPGA", is different. They allow you to modify the silicon via software configuration to be the perfect Application Specific Circuit or short "ASIC" for your personal application. Therefore they are like your private 'ASIC' fabrication via reconfigurable logic. And further more you can speedup your application inside each Xilinx FPGA using typically hundreds of parallel cores.

Faster per clock. Usually multiple parallel processing elements are synthesized into an FPGA. Each Field Programmable Gate Array typically provides more computational performance than a higher clocked general purpose CPU or GPUs. Furthermore RIVYERAs unique architecture allows to scale this computational performance to a massively parallel level. Allowing automatic algorithm distribution and concurrent applications of multiple users on different FPGAs. Programmable Clock generators allow high level clock optimization to maximize computational performance.

Benefits of two worlds

The Hex-Core Intel "Gulftown" or Quad-Core Intel “Nehalam” processor has been combined with a high performance FPGA Super Computer. Joining the benefits of Intels single-die, 64-bit architecture makes 8MB of fully shared L3 cache readily available to each of the processor cores. This fully scalable FPGA computing setup allows to accelerate computationally expesive applications dramatically. The result is fast access to cache data via a SciEngines unique Interface or open standard interface structures like PCI Express. Combine that with the other technological advances and you get a supercomputer which is up to five orders of magnitude faster than current general purpose architecture.

More I/O bandwidth.

The new RIVYERA Family delivers up to twice the overall I/O bandwidth of the previous generation. Users can choose from one up to seven 1-lane (x1) or 4-lane (x4) wide PCI Express interface cards as well as from SciEngines unique ultra high bandwidth memory coupling. Because we provide mainboards with fully independant PCIe-slots, the bandwidth isn’t shared. So you get all the bandwidth you need by use of the latest I/O cards, e.g. 10Gb Ethernet cards, multiport 4Gb Fibre Channel cards, or InfiniBand interface cards for connecting your FPGA super computer.

Increased performance per watt.

The new RIVYERA delivers up to 50 percent reduction in idle power consumption and provides percent better performance per watt over the previous generation. A peak power consumption of 650 Watts allows you to save enough energy to run applications on those ordinary PCs you may what to keep. Compared to standard PC clusters you can save up to 500% energy depending onto the application. How do you get more performance with less energy? For starters, the FPGA is built on an industry-leading technology process allowing your algorithm to utilize typically 97.3 percent of the silicon area for your application. Therefore no idle units have to be powered and in a fully pipelined and optimized design it delivers a result every clock cycle. Therefore RIVYERA delivers an outstanding energy efficiency and performance. A smart system design combined with modern power management in RIVYERA, means a supercomputer that’s less expensive to power and cool.

Technical Specifications

In the box RIVYERA DDS Power cords I/O cable (depends on option) Printed and electronic documentation Drivers and Utilities CD–ROM FPGAs 16 to 32 Xilinx Spartan–3 5000 (XC3S5000) Memory 32–MB DRAM per FPGA Memory–Expansion optional: 32–GB SDHC Card per FPGA Host–PC Supermicro off-the-shelf server grade Mainboard Intel Corei7, 930 12 GB RAM, ECC DDR3 SATAII RAID-Controller max. 1 PCIe4x slot for i/o card or 4 PCIe1x slots for i/o cards Watchdog (standard configuration, b2o available) Userdata storage optional: up to five 2–TB SATA–II hard disc drives Backplane 4 identical Slots typically 1 occupied by FPGA cards I/O connections dual 10⁄100⁄1000BASE–T (Gigabit) RJ–45 Ethernet interface (supporting jumbo frames) optional: 10G-Ethernet optional: fibre channel optional: firewire 400 optional: firewire 800 offered interface depends on configuration

Electrical requirements Output power: 865W (cooling redundant) w/ PFC Line voltage: universal input (100V to 240V AC), power factor corrected Maximum input current: 32.0A (100V to 120V) or 16.0A (200V to 240V) Frequency: 50Hz to 60Hz, single phase Certification: 80 PLUS Certified Regulatory (Power Supply): USA - UL listed, FCC, Canada - CUL listed, Germany - TUV Certified, Europe/CE Mark, EN 60950/IEC 60950-Compliant Cooling 4x 5000 RPM Hot-swap PWM Cooling Fans Environmental requirements Operating temperature: 10°C to 35°C (50°F to 95°F) Storage temperature: -40°C to 70°C (-40°F to 158°F) Operating Humidity (non condensing): 8% to 70% RH Storage Humidity (non condensing): 5% to 95% RH Optional: Military Quality Hardware Size and weight Height: 45,2 cm (17.8 inches) Width: 17.8 cm (7.0 inches) Depth: 64.8 cm (25.5 inches) Weight: depends on configuration, e.g. 56 lbs (25.4 kg) base configuration Certifications FCC, CE, RoHS

Software included API Communication Test Communication Framework Target Application Specific Software Packages (optional)