A desktop-sized supercomputer, new types of computer
memory systems and easier-to-build microprocessors could be reality
if research being conducted by Sun Microsystems' Sun Labs pans
out.
Sun is working on new technologies that could help to bring a
desktop-sized supercomputer to fruition, thanks in part to a $50m
(£31.6m) grant awarded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (Darpa) to the company last month, Sun Labs director Jim
Mitchell said.
Sun was one of three companies given three-year contracts to
build a prototype high-end computer system for a variety of
Darpa-specified areas of use, including weather prediction,
biotechnology and cryptanalysis.
IBM and Cray were also selected to build prototypes. In three
years time, Darpa will select one of the companies to build the
computer system now in the prototype stage.
Whether or not Sun receives the next contract, the lab team's
research will have an impact on Sun's product lines, particularly
in the areas of system packaging, heat and power management, and
asynchronous design, Mitchell said.
Of the three, heat management is by far the toughest problem,
Mitchell said. "The big surprise to me about the high-performance
stuff is you spend all your time worrying about heat."
Some of the Darpa work on software development is making its way
into Sun's compilers, run-time libraries and development tools,
Mitchell said.
At next month's IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference in
San Jose, Sun will unveil research into how asynchronous design
principles can be applied to a computer's memory system to improve
performance and reduce the cost of computing.
Sun Lab engineer Ivan Sutherland, who leads Sun's asynchronous
design project, is scheduled to present a talk on proximity design
at the conference.
Asynchronous design is an approach to building computer
processors that allows them to be built and run in a more modular
way. In microprocessor designs, for example, it allows engineers to
build different components of the microprocessor - the floating
point unit or an arithmetic logic unit, for example - in modular
fashion.
This kind of design lets processors perform more efficiently
than traditional, clock-based microprocessors and also allows Sun
engineers to reuse processor components in future designs,
something that is rarely done in today's microprocessors, Mitchell
said. "When you do asynchronous logic, it tends to use half to a
third as much power as a clock system," he said.
Some of Sun Lab's work on asynchronous design has been
implemented in the UltraSparc IIIi processors that power the Sun
Fire V210 and V240 servers. The technique will be used to build at
least one of the upcoming Ultrasparc IV chips, Mitchell said, but
he estimated that it will be "two or three generations" before the
technology becomes common in all of Sun's microprocessors.
A working computer based on the work being done under the Darpa
contract would still be at least six years out, and would depend on
Sun being selected over Cray and IBM to proceed to the next phase
of the contract, Mitchell said.
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service