From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Wed Feb 10 1999 - 11:03:24 MST
http://www.starbridgesystems.com/release.html
Salt Lake City, Utah. A Salt Lake City company announced
today the production of the world’s first supercomputer
capable of performing 12.84 trillion calculations per second,
or 12.84 TeraOPs. Star Bridge Systems, Inc. ("SBS"), the
world leader in reconfigurable computing, said its
HAL-4rW1ä Hypercomputerä system (nicknamed "Hal")
began operating January 29.
The company said Hal is capable of operating at up to 60,000
times the speed of a 350-megahertz personal computer.
SBS’s President, Alfred J. DiMora, stated: "Hal may be
thousands of times faster than a PC, but it is still about the
size of a PC (less than 4 cubic feet), sits on a desktop,
weighs less than 150 pounds and plugs into a 110-volt wall
outlet. There is nothing in the world like it."
Mr. DiMora continued, "This puts the world on notice that
another breakthrough has come out of the garage to turn
the computer world upside down."
According to SBS, Hal is the fastest supercomputer in the
world for the majority of tasks performed by
supercomputers. Hal is also more versatile than other
supercomputers. With new, higher-order software
developed by SBS Hal is portable across incompatible
hardware platforms and supports most other operating
systems.
In addition to all of the tasks traditionally performed by
supercomputers, SBS’s Hypercomputer systems can
perform the full range of functions requiring ultra-fast
scaler processing, such as low-latency switching and routing
(example: telecommunications switching) and digital
broadband signal processing (examples: digital radio and
satellite communications). All of this in the same piece of
production-line hardware.
SBS says its Hypercomputer systems are just the tip of the
iceberg. They are only one example of a fundamental
breakthrough achieved by SBS’s Chief Technology Officer,
Kent L. Gilson, the pioneer of reconfigurable computing.
Gilson said, "Reconfigurable computing is the next
generation computing environment and represents a
full-fledged paradigm shift in computers and electronics."
Gilson continued, "Our high-performance supercomputers
are just the first application we chose for our
reconfigurable technology. Eventually, everything with a
chip in it, from toasters to 3-D video to automobiles to
personal computers, will operate with programmable chips
using SBS’s new order of programmability. Our
reconfigurable computing technology will span the entire
domain of information technology and electronics."
SBS is in the process of securing numerous patents covering
its Hypercomputer hardware and Vivaä software system,
which is a combination programming language/tool
set/operating system/graphic user interface enabling
object-oriented programming of Hypercomputers much
faster and easier than conventional programming.
Brent Ward, SBS’s Executive Vice President, noted,
"HAL-4rW1 was fifteen years in the making. It uses 280
programmable chips from Xilinx Corporation, called
field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) on thirty-six
proprietary integrated circuit boards. These boards form a
unique design yielding a degree of fault-recoverability (and
hence reliability) unheard of in the world of
supercomputers."
Ward added, "With our Viva software loaded into these
chips, Hal operates in many ways like the human brain. The
chips are reconfigured on-the-fly to do multiple
computationally-intensive tasks in real time. This is truly
computer architecture on demand."
Licenses for the HAL-4rW1 Hypercomputer system cost a
minimum of $26 million. Because this technology is
scaleable, a full range of systems which will be marketed
starting with the HAL-.25rW1 Hypercomputer system which
licences for $2 million.
SBS is both selling licenses outright and partnering with
licensees to expand its Hypercomputer technology to a
variety of applications. Initial applications being explored
by potential licensees include terrestrial
telecommunications, satellite telecommunications, Internet
search engine, voice over IP and video compression for the
broadcast media.
Below is a comparison between HAL-4rW1 and IBM’s Blue
Pacific, previously the world’s fastest supercomputer.
COMPUTER COMPARISON
SBS’s HAL-4rW1 Hypercomputerä System. These
systems are massively-parallel, reconfigurable,
third-order programmable, ultra-tightly-coupled, fully
linearly-scaleable, evolvable, asymmetrical
multi-processors. They are plug-compatible
supercomputers that surpass conventional supercomputers
in features and performance, at a far more attractive price.
Unlike any other supercomputer available, they perform a
wide range of computationally-intensive tasks in real time
in an extraordinarily small amount of hardware. Target
market: All supercomputer applications and many
applications beyond the capacity of conventional
supercomputers.
IBM’s Blue Pacific Supercomputer. According to press
releases from IBM and the U.S. Department of Energy, Blue
Pacific was delivered to the Energy Department’s Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in October, 1998. IBM
announced at the time that Blue Pacific was the world’s
fastest computer. It is a one-of-a-kind machine assembled
for Livermore, a nuclear weapons lab, for simulations that
determine, without detonation, whether aging nuclear
weapons are still operable. Target market: Some scientific
applications.
SBS HAL-4rW1
IBM Pacific
Blue(per press
releases)
Cost:
$26 Million
$94 Million
Performance:
12.8
TeraOPs(Sustained
- executing 4-bit
adder; 3.8 TeraOPs
executing
16-adder)
1.2 TeraOPs
sustained 3.9
TeraOPs peak
Hard Disk Size:
100 GB to 18 TB
75 TB
Processors:
Synthesized
Hyper-Specificity
Processorsä
5,856 Power PC
604 processors
Comm.
Topology:
Variable
Fixed
(Hypercluster)
Memory:
8-100 GB variable
with 50
nano-second
latency worst case
2.6 TB of RAM
distributed
Power:
1600 watts (110
volts)
3.9 megawatts
Disk Access:
Up to 10 GB per
second
10.6 GB per second
Floor Space:
17" x 27 1/2" x 14"
(3.78 cubic feet)
8,000 sq. ft.
Length:
27 1/2 inches
228 yards
(refrigerator-sized
units laid
end-to-end)
Height:
14 inches
Approximately 7
feet
Cooling:
Air (10 internal
mini-fans)
280 tons of air
conditioning
powered by more
than one megawatt
of power
Special
Flooring:
None required
(desk-top and
portable)
Approximately
8,000 feet of
computer flooring
Ventilation:
No special
operating
environment
required
Requires special
operating
environment
Power Cable:
1 standard
extension cord
5 miles of No. 4
power cable
(approximately 6
inches
circumference)
Copper/Optical
Cable:
12 feet
50 miles of cable
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/sing_analysis.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.
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