The approach taken in BlueGene/L (BG/L) is substantially different. The system is built out of a very large number of nodes, each of which has a relatively modest clock rate. Those nodes present both low power consumption and low cost. The design point of BG/L utilizes IBM PowerPC embedded CMOS processors, embedded DRAM, and system-on-a-chip techniques that allow for integration of all system functions including compute processor, communications processor, 3 cache levels, and multiple high speed interconnection networks with sophisticated routing onto a single ASIC. Because of a relatively modest processor cycle time, the memory is close, in terms of cycles, to the processor. This is also advantageous for power consumption, and enables construction of denser packages in which 1024 compute nodes can be placed within a single rack. Integration of the inter-node communications network functions onto the same ASIC as the processors reduces cost, since the need for a separate, high-speed switch is eliminated.The current design goals of BG/L aim for a scalable supercomputer having up to 65,536 compute nodes and target peak performance of 360 teraFLOPS with extremely cost effective characteristics and low power (~1 MW), cooling (~300 tons) and floor space (<2,500>
In December 1999, IBM announced a $100 million research initiative for a five-year effort to build a massively parallel computer, to be applied to the study of biomolecular phenomena such as protein folding. The project has two main goals: to advance our understanding of the mechanisms behind protein folding via large-scale simulation, and to explore novel ideas in massively parallel machine architecture and software. This project should enable biomolecular simulations that are orders of magnitude larger than current technology permits. Major areas of investigation include: how to use this novel platform to effectively meet its scientific goals, how to make such massively parallel machines more usable, and how to achieve performance targets at a reasonable cost, through novel machine architectures. The design is built largely around the previous QCDSP and QCDOC supercomputers.
The Blue Gene/L supercomputer is unique in the following aspects:
- Trading the speed of processors for lower power consumption.
- Dual processors per node with two working modes: co-processor (1 user process/node: computation and communication work is shared by two processors) and virtual node (2 user processes/node)
- System-on-a-chip design
- A large number of nodes (scalable in increments of 1024 up to at least 65,536)
- Three-dimensional torus interconnect with auxiliary networks for global communications, I/O, and management
- Lightweight OS per node for minimum system overhead (computational noise)
- Blue Gene is a computer architecture project designed to produce several supercomputers, designed to reach operating speeds in the PFLOPS (petaFLOPS) range, and currently reaching sustained speeds of nearly 500 TFLOPS (teraFLOPS). It is a cooperative project among IBM (particularly IBM Rochester MN, and the Thomas J. Watson Research Center), the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the United States Department of Energy (which is partially funding the project), and academia. There are four Blue Gene projects in development: BlueGene/L, BlueGene/C, BlueGene/P, and BlueGene/Q.
The Blue Gene/L supercomputer is unique in the following aspects:
- Trading the speed of processors for lower power consumption.
- Dual processors per node with two working modes: co-processor (1 user process/node: computation and communication work is shared by two processors) and virtual node (2 user processes/node)
- System-on-a-chip design
- A large number of nodes (scalable in increments of 1024 up to at least 65,536)
- Three-dimensional torus interconnect with auxiliary networks for global communications, I/O, and management
- Lightweight OS per node for minimum system overhead (computational noise)
