CERN LIBRARIES, GENEVA CERN/DRDU 9 1-12 Danc/M5 llltlllllllllulll II\)Illll|lI)I|l)H)|lllllI|ll)) afch , ;, — P A $(100000690 <_ fri · \ xg ·-J ’ STATUS REPORT Sc? (1@’rQ» lu? Ul __ V? 211 — Q CERN participation in the GP MIMD ESPRIT project P.C. Burkimsher, R.W. Dobinson ' , A. King, B. Martin, and I.M. Willers, CERN. J—L. Pages, University of Lausanne A. Schneider, University of Geneva. In collaboration with INMOS (UK), lead partner. Meiko (UK), Parsys (UK), Parsytec (D) and Telmat (F), main partners. and Grupo APD (E), INESC (P), Siemens (D), SICS (S), Southampton University (UK), IRISA (F) OCR Output spokesman z JMU Introduction A proposal was submitted to ESPRIT in January 1990 by INMOS and four European manufacturers of Transputer based computers. The aim of the proposal is to develop high performance parallel processing computers using a new generation of Transputers. ESPRIT is the EEC supported European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology. The technical, manpower and budget details of the project are contained in the technical annex [l] of the official contract that has been signed by the lead and main project partners with the EEC. CERN has taken part in the preparatory work for the GP MIMD ESPRIT proposal and must now decide on the continuation of this work within the framework of the approved project. Transputer Technology Today's microprocessors make available on a single chip a significant fraction of the computing performance of a traditional mainframe. A recent trend has been to construct very powerful computing systems of interconnected microprocessors: up to hundreds or even thousands of processor nodes, each with local memory, joined by a fast switching network. Such machines are called MIMD (Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data) computers. Programs written for such systems can achieve high performance by treating different parts of a problem concurrently on multiple processors which communicate via the exchange of messages. Making multiple processors work together on a common problem has hitherto often involved major efforts in both·hardware and software. The Transputer, Fig. l, is a novel type of microprocessor, a basic building block explicitly designed to allow connection to other Transputers. Large assemblies of Transputers and switches are more straightforward to assemble and program than systems using traditional microprocessors, see Fig. 2. The basic building blocks used in the GP-MIMD project are a new INMOS microprocessor, the Hl Transputer, and the ClO4 network routing chip which are being developed with the help of funding from the EEC. INMOS claims that each Hl will have a sustained performance in excess of 60 MIPS and 20 MFLOPS, which compares favourably with present state—of—the—art American RISC processors available from Intel, MIPS and SUN. Each of the four on-chip links of the H1 have a data transfer speed of l0 Mbytes/second. The new Hl Transputer with its higher computational performance and enhanced networking capabilities will form the basis for the construction of general purpose computers as well as advanced dedicated systems. GP MIMD Project Outline A three year project, commencing on January lst 1991, was given initial approval by ESPRIT in May 1990. The proposed role of CERN in the project is as follows: l. CERN will mount high energy physics applications using new generation Transputer hardware and software. Both on—line and off-line applications will be targetted. We will pursue methods and tools for programming parallel systems: 2. CERN will develop high performance input/output interfaces between Transputer based machines, data acquisition equipment and high speed data recording devices. This will include the development of a VME interface and a fiber optics connection to the GP MIMD machine. OCR Output A grant would be made by ESPRIT to CERN for the hiring of new personnel (8 man years) and equipment. The total value of this grant is approximately 1.4M sf. EEC funding is conditional on CERN providing complementary resources of 690k sf and 15.75 man years, to be spread over the three year duration of the project. The overall aims of the GP MIMD project, as approved by the EEC, are as follows: l. To develop in Europe an open standard architecture for message passing MIMD machines which provide computational and communications capabilities for up to 1000 processing nodes: 2. To provide light weight software for real time computing and a distributed UNIX-like operating system for general purpose computing; 3. To construct prototype computers and demonstrate the machine's capabilities across a range of applications: 4. To develop new VLSI components, in line with the recent EEC Open Microprocessor Initiative. INMOS will design, by the end of the project, a processor with a target performance of 400 MIPS and 100 MFLOPS on a single chip, with Gigabit/second links. Relevance to High Energy Physics During the last two years, CERN has gained experience in exploiting the present generation of T80O Transputers and has established good contacts with INMOS, Meiko and Southampton University which have lead to our involvement in this project. The TSOO Transputers have proved themselves to be promising components for building on-line systems for high energy physics experiments, in UA6 and ZEUS [2]. An interface between Fastbus and Transputers has been constructed at CERN in collaboration with INFN Rome and is under test. Several European institutes are using parallel computer systems to achieve high computing performance, at relatively low cost, for a range of off—1ine applications. This important new trend in parallel computing will, in our view, be of direct relevance to future experiments and accelerators. It will be of importance in real time acquisition and control systems, for example, in event building and higher level trigger systems. It could also provide significant computing power for simulation and event processing, capacity which could be made available more economically than using present traditional mainframes. Future high energy physics computing needs are predicted to continue the past strong upward trend. Software is recognised to be a particularly challenging and important aspect. Work has already begun to explore methods and design tools for designing parallel real time systems and for running some of CERN's large Fortran programs on a GP-MIMD machine [3]. Valuable experience would be gained by mounting applications on the evolving industry standard UNIX parallel processing platforms. To successfully understand and exploit parallel computing systems, it is important to learn to apply parallel programming techniques to solve high energy physics problems. As a result of our continuing collaboration with the H1 chip manufacturer, INMOS, and the current major European parallel computer manufacturers, Meiko (UK), Parsys (UK), Parsytec (D) and Telmat (F), considerable expertise and experience would be gained in the area of parallel processing, both in hardware and software. OCR Output References [1] GP MIMD P5404, Technical Annex for ESPRIT General Purpose MIMD Machines. [2] Transputers in Particle Physics Experiments, R.w. Dobinson, J-L. Pages and J.C. Vermeulen, to be published in Particle world. [3] Parallelizing HEP FORTRAN Programs for the GP—MIMD Distributed Memory Machine, A. Schneider and A. King, to be presented at Computing in High Energy Physics 1991, Tsukuba City, Japan, March 11-15, 1991. OCR Output Floating point processor Main processor On chip memory Links to other Transputers External memory interface Figure 1 Transputer block diagram OCR Output H1 H1 H1 H1 C104 Switch H1 H1 H1 H1 Figure 2. Network of H1 Transpute-rs linked via a C104 switch.