The 48-core SCC processor: the programmer’s view
by paul on Jul.23, 2010, under Computing
The number of cores integrated onto a single die is expected to climb steadily in the foreseeable future. This move to many-core chips is driven by a need to optimize performance per watt. How best to connect these cores and how to program the resulting many-core processor, however, is an open research question. Designs vary from GPUs to cache-coherent shared memory multiprocessors to pure distributed memory chips. The 48-core SCC processor reported in this paper is an intermediate case, sharing traits of message passing and shared memory architectures. The hardware has been described elsewhere. In this paper, we describe the programmer’s view of this chip. In particular we describe RCCE: the native message passing model created for the SCC processor.
Must have been a great sabbatical – just finished this paper for Supercomputing 2010, and it was the least painful paper I’ve ever written.
Keeping Portland Weird
by paul on Jun.22, 2010, under Diary
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| We were in Portland over the weekend, and look what we saw – 8000 naked Portlanders out for a ride as part of the World Naked Bike Ride. This makes the Portland event about eight times bigger than the equivalent London event – wow! |
Exploring the Gulf Coast
by paul on Apr.28, 2010, under Sabbatical 2010
We arrived in New Orleans just in time to catch in front of the first really big storm of the summer, a great opportunity to stay put and explore the delights of the city. And what amazing luck – we arrived in New Orleans just in time for the first weekend of Jazz Fest. We decided to skip the outdoor festival events because of the bad weather but we did catch some great live Jazz in the French Quarter.
We did brave the weather for a trip to the Bayous, and it was possible one of the most adrenalin filled days of the road trip so far. We flew in a four seater sea plane from Belle Chasse just ourside New Orleans for a guided tour of the city, the on to Kraemer in the heart of the Louisiana swampland for a much closer view of the crocodiles in the swamp, guided by a local Cajun tour guide. The thunderstorms moving through on the tour really added to the southern atmosphere in the swamp.
The food in New Orleans was amazing – I had the best cheese on toast with pear butter at Green Goddess and some really authentic white beans at the Gumbo shop. Topped it all off with coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde.
Leaving Louisiana, the call of Florida’s Emerald coast beckoned, and we decided to whisk through Mississippi & Alabama and make a bee-line for St. George’s Island, on Florida’s forgotten coast. We really fell in love with the sandy, white beaches and crystal clear green-blue sea on this tranquil island.
