computing breakthrough - full text

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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