SCIENCE

Chip Maker Utilizes ETI’s Programming Environment to Realize Power of Multicore Architecture for HPC and Embedded Systems

E.T. International, Inc. (ETI) has announced that Adapteva has selected ETI's SWARM (SWift Adaptive Runtime Machine) software solution for its Epiphany multicore processor, the first ever architecture capable of scaling to thousands of parallel processors on a single chip.  ETI’s SWARM programming environment enables application development on the Epiphany processing architecture, and is part of the company’s unique many-core expertise offerings that include design, development, and other custom programming services for advanced HPC and embedded computing systems.

“ETI has developed a world-class solution to the multicore programming problem,” said Andreas Olofsson, CEO and founder of Adapteva.  “The Epiphany microprocessor redefined the meaning of real-time computing and will allow for the introduction of advanced applications not even feasible on current quad-core devices − but none of these applications will be possible without an efficient and scalable programming environment.  After designing the architecture, we had to find the software solution that would allow developers to fully utilize the power of the parallel environment to create more sophisticated applications.  ETI’s SWARM technology provides the combined ease-of-programming and specialized many-core capacity necessary to deliver this development capability.”

Epiphany’s scalability of parallel structure offers the ability to significantly improve performance of even the most processing-intensive programs at radically reduced power consumption rates.  Current programming execution models are not optimized for systems with many processing cores, and application performance on these systems is actually worse than on a less powerful embedded engine.  ETI specializes in providing solutions that are specifically designed to not only enable application development for many-core and hybrid HPC systems, but to simplify this programming process for developers through a computationally sophisticated but easy-to-use environment.  Its SWARM solution proved to be the perfect fit for Adapteva’s breakthrough embedded engine.

“ETI is excited to partner with Adapteva to provide the software for its game-changing Epiphany technology,” said Rich Collier, COO of ETI.  “The possibilities for many-core processors are limitless, and ETI’s SWARM technology enables efficient application execution on even the most complex of these architectures.  SWARM has been proven on some of the most advanced many-core systems in the world, and we are eager to bring its power to Adapteva’s processor for HPC, embedded computing, and other emerging many-core environments.”

ETI and Adapteva are presenting the dual hardware-software solution for many-core systems at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC ’11) in Hamburg, Germany this week from June 20-22.  The multicore processor and SWARM programming environment are on display at ETI booth 400-5 as part of the company’s comprehensive set of many-core system software and services, including benchmarking, hardware and software design, performance-critical programming, consulting and more.