Supercomputer

COMP1260 > Technology Matters

Introduction Supercomputers have greater processing power than other computers of their day; they can use up to 129,600 cores. They are defined as the most advanced and powerful computers, or an array of computers, in existence at the time of their construction. They are used for jobs that require massive amounts of calculating, like weather forecasting, engineering design, nuclear simulations and animations. Supercomputers are housed in large clean rooms permitting high speed air or water flow for cooling. Supercomputers are at the forefront of processing capacity and speed of calculations for much high-level scientific research. Memory and memory access times of supercomputers far exceed those in standard machine architectures. Their precision and range of calculations are almost beyond comprehension. The following fields can utilize the power of supercomputers: Business: Economic Forecasting, and Market Simulations Scientific Computing: Chemistry, Engineering, Weather Forecasting, etc. Aeronautical Engineering: Wind Tunnel modelling and Microwave reflectance profiles Supercomputer Author

...by students Wow! Supercomputers are super-duper and extremely amazing! How have they changed people of today? How does new technology influence the whole world? You may do research or watch videos. You can play with water without getting wet here(a vedio)! Supercomputer Model Supercomputer

History

Supercomputers were first developed in the late 1960s, such as the “Cray 1” supercomputer introduced by Seymour Cray. The processor consisted of individual integrated circuits since microprocessors were unavailable. Successive generations of supercomputers were developed by Cray and became more powerful with each new version. IBM, NEC, Texas Instruments and Unisys began to design and manufacture more powerful and faster computers after the introduction of the Cray 1. You can find more information about the history and technology of supercomputers.

“The 32nd edition of the closely watched list of the world’s TOP500 supercomputers has just been issued, with the 1.105 petaflop/s IBM supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory holding on to the top spot it first achieved in June 2008” . Today’s fastest supercomputers include IBM's Blue Gene and ASCI Purple, SCC's Beowulf, and Cray's SV2. Future supercomputer designs might incorporate the use of entirely new technologies of circuit miniaturization that could include new storage devices, data transfer systems, and development of parallel algorithms. New designs will be much more powerful than any current models. Research articles can be found here.

Supercomputer Architecture

Supercomputer design varies from model to model. Generally, there are vector computers and parallel computers. Detailed information about both kinds of architecture can be found . Vector computers use a very fast data “pipeline” to move data from components and memory in the computer to a central processor. Recently, parallel vector computers have been developed to take advantage of both designs. For more information about this design, visit this Netlib.org page. Generic Structure

Computer and Networks

• Vector architectures, vectorizing compilers, and applications tuned for the use of vector hardware
• Shared memory architectures, scalable operating systems, and run-time systems; and applications that can take advantage of shared memory
• Message passing architectures and applications that are designed to use this programming mode

Network Types

A computer network is a group of two or more computers (aka nodes) that are configured to share information and recourses, such as printers, files, and databases. A network connects devices called nodes or hosts. For example: computers, printers, modems, switches, routers. Nodes are connected via communication links, for example: phone lines, TV cables, fibre-optic cable, wireless . In most large computers, processors spend most of their time waiting for operands. Get the operands to the processor ASAP! High bandwidth Low latency Minimum number of hops

Network Types

Problems and Solutions

1. A supercomputer generates large amount of heat and must be cooled. Cooling supercomputers is a major problem
2. Information that moves between two parts of a supercomputer must have latencies. Code should be structured to make efficient use of global memory accesses
3. A Supercomputer consumes and produces massive amount of data in a very short period of time
4. Programming is necessarily concurrent, shared memory, multi-process:

• Use appropriate protection
• Process synch points
• Minimize communication overhead
• Use shared memory rather than message passing wherever possible

Links

All articles related to the COMP 3040 Wiki Articles in category "COMP 1260" COMP1260 Computer Science Courses Guide to Wikitext Formatting	COMP 1260 Wiki Authors

Further Readings

1. TOP500 Supercomputerand Cary, the Supercomputer Company
2. Wikipedia: Supercomputer
3. Tennessee Journalist: UT supercomputer holds the title of 15th most powerful in the world
4. Google Video BATA: Structure of a Supercomputer

References

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