IBM's POWER7 processors stand out on a number of counts, not the least of which is their complexity. But beyond the 1.2 billion transistors, up to eight processing cores, SRAM and eDRAM, and clock speeds of 4Ghz, the processor family is unique for a very different reason. It was the pioneer for a new approach to complex chip design within IBM that leverages high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities in the cloud to bring scalability, cost efficiencies, and flexibility to a global development effort.
Other large-scale IBM chip programs have long tapped into grid computing and dispersed HPC capabilities, but it became apparent in the mid-2000s that the company needed an even more efficient infrastructure around large-scale processor design to rein in escalating IT costs around engineering and keep complexity down. With sophisticated simulation software a requisite for chip design, the IT costs associated with maintaining computing power in design centers scattered across the globe had skyrocketed. There was also mounting complexity associated with trying to collaborate and reconcile design data across the distributed computing infrastructure.
The complex POWER7 processor has 1.2 billion transistors and up to eight processing cores. Source: IBM Power Systems
"Simulations are becoming more and more complex. Deadlines are becoming shorter and shorter, and you end up with huge spikes in the need for computing power behind all of the design engineering," says Bruce Anderson, general manager, electronics industry, at IBM. "The IT costs for engineering keep escalating, impacting companies' ability to profit on designs."
That was certainly the case for the POWER7 development team, which was looking at a static development budget to bankroll the design of a far more complex chip. With more of its development manpower scattered across different design centers around the world, building and maintaining separate pools of HPC resources was becoming a cost burden. It was also an administrative nightmare around keeping data consistent across the different silos. The scenario showed no signs of abating at IBM or at any other semiconductor manufacturer, for that matter.
"We get roughly the same development dollars every year, so the question became, how do we become more efficient to do more and more complex chip design," says Carl Anderson, the IBM fellow behind the HPC cloud effort.
@3D_Eng: You raise a good point. Sounds like your company has learned from experience. Any thoughts on what companies can and should do to address resource demand most effectively?
One of the difficulties in shared resource is determining the scale of the resources you need, especially in a "shared" environment. Probably 3 or 4 times a year the program schedules of different divisions align and overload our shared analyses capabilities for days. In this era of "just in time" everything (including engineering) a critical schedule gets blown rseulting in very unhappy customers. To effectively use these shared resources companies will have to find a way to manage IT resource demand on a global level.
Doug: You hit the nail on the head in terms what is driving a lot of this innovation in the design tool area. As companies have centers of excellence and expertise located all around the globe, it is no longer realistic or reasonable that everyone involved in a particular engineering effort is housed in the same building, let alone the same country. That's why we're seeing so much interest and activity around new collaborative design tools as well as capabilities like this HPC in the cloud, which can minimize the IT investment that individual design centers would have to make in order to own their own HPC horsepower, when the truth is, they don't really need it all the time so why have that capital investment.
Use of the cloud for complex design would seem to also require greater collaboration between different design centers that previously operated more as discrete units using their own computing power systems. Do you find this is the case, or I am just engaging in wishful thinking? Either way, it's a really interesting trend.
Also, I know the POWER7 is loaded, but the size of the piece shown in the picture still surprises me. I relaize it probably has the computing power of a zillion Univacs, but it still surprsies me. Is the size and the shape of the processor configurable?
You really have to hand it to IBM under the leadership of Sam Palmisano. This story is a great example of how they're not content to stop at what would be the logical endpoint for most other companies. They continued onward, and took the tools which successfully supported their POWER7 design effort, and turned around and packaged it as a product. So, depending on how you look at it, they ended up paying for those tools (by selling them), or all the revenue is basically found money (very high margins for incremental sales).
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