May 25, 2005 -- The FHPCA (FPGA High Performance Computing Alliance) was launched today in Edinburgh. The group comprises leading technology companies, academics and the public sector who will work together over the next two years to design and build a 64 node FPGA based super computer, capable of achieving processing speeds in excess of 1 Teraflop. The computer will be built using commercial off the shelf (COTS) technology from alliance members. To demonstrate the system's power and flexibility the alliance will then select and port, three existing super computer applications from science and industry, these applications will be selected in June 2005.
The new supercomputer, which will be the most powerful of its type in the world, will be owned and operated by the EPCC (Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre) at the University of Edinburgh. Visiting researchers will be able to arrange access to the FHPCA system for three month research programmes via the EPPC, during which time they will be supported by members of the Alliance to port their applications to the system.
During the program, the alliance will be funding six EngD studentships and will develop "tool kits" for FPGA based high performance computing, together with a body of intellectual property which will be made available for licence. Currently, few standards exist to guide engineers developing FPGA based computer systems, so by collaborating in this development the technology partners expect to be able to increase the interoperability and accessibility of their technology to engineers and scientists.
A key aim of the project is enabling new and existing applications to benefit from the advantages of FPGA Computing. The Alliance will be a catalyst for knowledge transfer by appointing a Technology Translator acting as a bridge between the technology experts and the application community. The Alliance will also provide expertise to allow companies to develop the new skills necessary to embrace the technology and create materials to train the Electronic Design Engineers and Computer Scientists to be able to apply the knowledge created by the project.
The FPGA High Performance Computing Alliance was founded by Algotronix, a UK supplier of technical due diligence on semiconductor and semiconductor intellectual property (IP) companies; Alpha Data, set up in 1993 to provide state-of-the-art solutions for compute-intensive applications; the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC), the largest high performance computing center which also manages Europe's biggest Supercomputer, called HPCx; the Institute for System Level Integration (ISLI), a collaboration between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, and Strathclyde universities; Nallatech, which has been delivering innovative high-performance FPGA computing solutions to global blue-chip companies for over a decade; and Xilinx.
Go to the FHPCA (FPGA High Performance Computing Alliance) website to find additional information.
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