BIG DATA

Stratix III FPGA-based module delivers significant cost, power and space savings: Altera and XtremeData today announced they are demonstrating their operational FPGA/Intel Xeon processor-based front side bus (FSB) module at the Intel Developer Forum. Equipped with an Altera high performance Stratix III FPGA, the XD2000i targets the Intel FSB at 1066 MHz for coprocessing applications. The combination of an Intel Xeon 5300 series processor and Stratix III FPGA coprocessor in the XD2000i module provides customers with the highest performance FSB accelerator available. The XD2000i provides high-performance application acceleration ranging from 10X to 100X compared to processors alone, while simultaneously reducing overall system power consumption. It is the ideal solution for accelerating applications such as mapping the human genome or data analytics for the financial market applications. "The combination of an Altera Stratix FPGA with a high speed, low latency FSB interface to Intel's latest processors results in significant algorithm acceleration for customer applications," said Dr. Misha Burich, Altera's senior vice president of research and development. "These customers will derive exceptional value through the application speed up as well as the savings in power and space provided by FPGA-based coprocessing." When XtremeData coprocessor modules are installed into commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) CPU platforms, the algorithmic parts of applications are substantially accelerated via parallelization and pipelining. The XD2000i is pin-compatible with and plugs directly into the processor socket of dual -- or quad-socket servers. It was designed to stay within Intel's defined keep-out area, so customers can now integrate these in-socket accelerators in their Intel Xeon DP rack-mount servers, blade systems and ATCA platforms. "With today's release of the XD2000i, it's an exciting time for the industry," said Ravi Chandran, CEO of XtremeData. "Using Altera's Stratix III FPGA, the XD2000i delivers up to five times the logic capacity of previous generations of ISAs. Additionally, it offers unparalleled double-precision floating performance per watt, the key benchmark requested by our customers in high-performance computing and financial analytics." "The XtremeData XD2000i ISA using Intel QuickAssist Technology will allow our mutual customers in financial analytics, network security, life sciences and medical imaging to have a great FPGA coprocessing solution for the Intel platforms," said Lorie Wigle, director, server software and technology initiatives, digital enterprise group, Intel Corporation. "Intel has taken an open approach to tightly coupled ISAs, like the XD2000i, not only by providing the physical ability to connect to the FSB and the Intel QuickAssist Technology accelerator abstraction layer, but also by working with companies like XtremeData to create fully optimized FSB-attached solutions." "SGI is committed to assisting more customers in utilizing FPGA technology, such as Altera's high-performance Stratix III FPGAs, to accelerate application performance," said Bill Mannel, senior director, server marketing at SGI. "The XtremeData XD2000i offers hardware compatibility with our Altix XE and ICE systems. It offers an attractive FPGA solution for users requiring increased performance and reduced time to market. With on-site integration provided by SGI Professional Services, customers can rely on this XtremeData/Altera solution to maximize their investments in SGI's Xeon-class clusters and blade servers." The Intel Xeon offers a high-bandwidth, low-latency interface to other processors and memory via the FSB interconnect. Placing the Stratix III FPGA in one of the Xeon sockets gives the coprocessor a high-speed link to memory as well as a fast connection to the host processor without requiring board modifications, while providing a simple hardware integration path. Stratix III FPGAs provide the XD module with an abundant amount of logic and enables Intel-based systems with approximately 1 million logic elements (LEs) and 2304 multipliers with a fast FSB processor interconnect. Altera also plans to support the Intel QuickPath Interconnect interface in a new generation of the Stratix FPGA family. The QuickPath Interconnect will be used in future Intel processors to interface to other processors and memory.