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Date:      Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:28:51 +0200
From:      Paketix <paketix@bluewin.ch>
To:        Garrett Cooper <gcooper@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        freebsd-arch@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Porting effort towards TILERA massive multicore CPUs...?
Message-ID:  <616133A7-3DF8-4192-8457-09BC27D2085E@bluewin.ch>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikmUrRWbXJZ-RGiyLHEgTWHP_epPw7%2B4XDJSrjk@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <DAF6D540-3311-4F75-8E24-A5BCBDBC7AE0@bluewin.ch> <AANLkTikmUrRWbXJZ-RGiyLHEgTWHP_epPw7%2B4XDJSrjk@mail.gmail.com>

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On Sep 26, 2010, at 20:05, Garrett Cooper wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 4:13 AM, Paketix <paketix@bluewin.ch> wrote:
>> there is a rather new processor from TILERA (100 core chip) which is
>> most certainly already known here at FreeBSD mailing list.
>> [http://www.tilera.com/products/processors/TILE-Gx_Family]
>> the processor/platform is targeted towards:
>> - high performance network security platforms
>>  - firewalling/vpn
>>  - utm
>>  - l7 deep packet inspection
>>  - network monitoring and forensics
>> - cloud computing
>>  - web application (lamp)
>>  - data caching (memcached)
>>  - database applications
>>  - high-performance computing
>>=20
>> chris metcalf from TILERA did the current linux port and i was in
>> contact with him about two weeks ago.
>> at this time QUANTA computer is starting to offer a 512 core 2U box
>> with an impressive performance/watt ratio (400 watts only for 512
>> cores).
>> [http://www.tilera.com/solutions/cloud_computing]
>>=20
>> i guess those massive multicore chips would enable bleeding edge
>> high performance solutions based on FreeBSD.
>>=20
>> well...
>> - anyone interested in porting FreeBSD towards TILERA?
>>  (architecture seems to be similar to MIPS...)
>> - is there already some ongoing porting effort?
>> - porting for this chip already discussed in this mailing list?
>>=20
>> many thx
>> /pat
>>=20
>> some links for those who want some more details:
>> company homepage:
>> http://www.tilera.com/
>> 64core processor:
>> http://www.tilera.com/products/processors/TILEPRO64
>> 100core processor with hardware packet (pre)processing
>> http://www.tilera.com/products/processors/TILE-Gx_Family
>> sample architecture for network appliances:
>> =
http://www.tilera.com/solutions/networking/network_security_appliances
>> 512core system from QUANTA computer inc. (available Q4-10/Q1-11):
>> http://www.tilera.com/solutions/cloud_computing
>> development system from TILERA:
>> http://www.tilera.com/products/platforms/TILEmpower_platform
>=20
>    In short this work requires changes to the scheduler and kernel
> structures that aren't 100% done yet. Look for some of Robert Watson
> and John Baldwin's replies to "Bumping MAXCPU on amd64" thread in the
> past month to freebsd-arch and freebsd-current.
> Cheers,
> -Garrett

usually it would - yes
but maybe not on tilera if you use it for security applications (like =
firewalling, proxy, url filter, ...)
each tile of a tilera chip chan run its own full featured OS
starting with TileGX the chip has a hardware loadbalancer serving the =
packet streams to the cores...
this could maybe serve as a first step
full SMP for e.g. database applications etc. later on
btw: the tilera chip does not have a floating point unit anyway which =
will limit the range of applications (FP must be emulated in software)
BR
/pat=



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