Posted on 09/21/2006 12:33:04 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - commentary - Cramer's Take) unveiled the first fruits of an initiative designed to create a new class of computers packing multiple processors from different vendors.
Dubbed Torrenza, the effort would allow other companies to create special co-processors that accelerate performance for certain tasks and operate in conjunction with AMD's microprocessor.
AMD positioned Torrenza to make its debut at the high end of the computing market with Thursday's announcement that several of the server industry's key chipmakers are evaluating the specifications for a standard socket for plugging in co-processors.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestreet.com ...
Raza Acquires AMD's "Alchemy" MIPS-based Processors
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AMD's "Torrenza" is an open, x86 platform that leverages the Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport capabilities of the AMD64 architecture to enable other processor and hardware providers to innovate within a common ecosystem. AMD hopes "Torrenza" will enable a global innovation community to develop and deploy application-specific co-processors to work alongside AMD processors in multi-socket systems. The first phase of "Torrenza" enabled partner silicon chipsets. The next phase will entail licensing of coherent HyperTransport to members of a global ecosystem.
http://www.razamicroelectronics.com
http://www.amd.com
13-Jun-06
Co-processors again.....
AMD Announces Socket Compatibility Plans to Drive Industry Collaboration
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By leveraging the advantages of AMD64 with Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport™ technology, OEMs will be able to standardize on a Torrenza Innovation Socket for many of their current and future server platforms. This game-changing approach to server design will enable OEMs to consolidate server offerings for multiple processors to potentially a single platform, reducing datacenter disruption and deployment costs for customers. The Torrenza initiative is establishing AMD64 as the Open Innovation Platform.
Leading server OEMs that develop silicon or intend to design products uniquely enabled by the Torrenza Initiative, including Cray, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, IBM, Dell and Sun Microsystems, have endorsed Torrenza as an open innovation initiative, and plan to evaluate the Torrenza Innovation Socket.
“This next phase in the Torrenza initiative would not be possible without the enthusiasm and desire of our partners to enable open innovation and greater collaboration across the computing ecosystem,” said Marty Seyer, senior vice president, Commercial Segment, AMD. “Together, we recognize that the impact of Torrenza can be far-reaching across the industry in reducing complexity for customers while increasing the pace of innovation both in silicon and platforms. Datacenter managers will immediately recognize the impact of the Torrenza open environment, and benefit from the enhanced cooperation at the platform level, with new levels of platform stability, upgradeability, flexibility, and capabilities for their server infrastructure.”
The Torrenza Advantage
The Torrenza Innovation Socket enables OEMs who develop their own silicon to take full advantage of an x86 environment and the accompanying economics associated with packaging, chipsets and motherboard designs. OEMs will be able to contribute to and obtain the Torrenza Innovation Socket Specification and associated design documentation.
“As a leader in the open movement, IBM applauds AMD for taking this step and always welcomes partners that take an open and collaborative approach to innovation,” said Bernie Meyerson, IBM Fellow and chief technologist, IBM Systems & Technology Group. “By working with AMD and joint clients such as Los Alamos National Laboratories, we are collaborating to deliver new value by leveraging this open approach.”
“Sun sees incredible innovation opportunity associated with this latest step in the Torrenza initiative across all of our product lines,” said Mike Splain, chief technologist and CTO, Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. “Developing silicon for the Torrenza Innovation Socket is something we are currently evaluating for all Sun platforms as it presents an interesting value proposition for leveraging volume economics while giving our customers the growth flexibility they require.”
“When combined with our HP BladeSystem Solutions Builder Program, the AMD Torrenza initiative becomes a very effective way to deliver high-value computing services to specialized market segments,” said Dwight Barron, HP Fellow and chief technologist, BladeSystem Division, HP. “The industry has been looking for a way to leverage industry-standard, high-volume IT components to solve the next tier of specialized computing problems, and HP sees this as a way to address that need.”
"Supercomputing places heavy demands on performance and thus innovation," said Jan Silverman, Cray's senior vice president of corporate strategy and business development. "Our Adaptive Supercomputing vision puts us on the edge of computer technology advancements. With the Torrenza Innovation Socket and the emerging Torrenza ecosystem, we can leverage additional innovations to extend the realized performance people have come to expect from Cray."
“Fujitsu Siemens Computers sees the value in AMD’s Torrenza initiative, and has already developed technology for it. We are able to connect two 2-socket servers seamlessly, turning them into a 4-way, or 8-core SMP as a result of Torrenza,” said Joseph Reger, CTO, Fujitsu Siemens Computers. “Upgradeability of systems from 2-way to 8-core is a Torrenza innovation from Fujitsu Siemens Computers that improves customers’ server longevity, and reduces total cost of ownership.”
“Dell is excited about the open innovation approach provided by AMD. The benefits of purpose-built processing elements complementing the AMD Opteron processor are powerful,” said Kevin Kettler, Chief Technology Officer, Dell. “The flexibility of Torrenza Initiative technology will allow Dell to continue to deliver cutting edge solutions to our enterprise customers.”
Through the Torrenza Initiative, the AMD64 computing platform is opened for industry-wide innovation, such as connecting non-AMD accelerators to AMD64 systems via HyperTransport technology links. Torrenza supports a range of integration innovations from interconnections leveraging HyperTransport, to co-processors accessing HyperTransport, to plug-in co-processors that directly harness the speed and communications delivered by HyperTransport.
Innerestin'.
Cell processor for your computer.
It could also be an interesting in-between for dedicated-function and general-purpose supercomputing. Say you have a 5000-node system that mainly does nuclear simulation, but otherwise does other jobs. Have a chip designed and produced specifically for your type of calculations, and you could probably triple the speed of the supercomputer, but it wouldn't be entirely useless for other tasks either.
Old is new again.....co processors were very popular many years ago.
Yes, I remember them. I like this one in that it's a general purpose socket. Anyone can come up with anything to put in there.
It will be interesting to see if anyone can come up with some good FPGA chips to take advantage of this.
To achieve stellar system performance, Advanced Micro Devices has opened its processor socket interface as part of the just released Torrenza platform to allow companies like DRC (Santa Clara, Calif.), Chicago-based XtremeData and others to develop and deploy application-specific coprocessors to work alongside AMD64 processors in multisocket processor systems. The coprocessors plug directly into an empty CPU socket and can be dynamically reconfigured, thus permitting users to change logic configurations to better match the algorithms that need acceleration.
Thanks, I had not heard about those companies....
bttt
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