QPACE -- a QCD parallel computer based on Cell processors
Abstract
QPACE is a novel parallel computer which has been developed to be primarily used for lattice QCD simulations. The compute power is provided by the IBM PowerXCell 8i processor, an enhanced version of the Cell processor that is used in the Playstation 3. The QPACE nodes are interconnected by a custom, application optimized 3-dimensional torus network implemented on an FPGA. To achieve the very high packaging density of 26 TFlops per rack a new water cooling concept has been developed and successfully realized. In this paper we give an overview of the architecture and highlight some important technical details of the system. Furthermore, we provide initial performance results and report on the installation of 8 QPACE racks providing an aggregate peak performance of 200 TFlops.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0911.2174,
title = {QPACE -- a QCD parallel computer based on Cell processors},
author = {H. Baier and H. Boettiger and M. Drochner and N. Eicker and U. Fischer and Z. Fodor and A. Frommer and C. Gomez and G. Goldrian and S. Heybrock and D. Hierl and M. Hüsken and T. Huth and B. Krill and J. Lauritsen and T. Lippert and T. Maurer and B. Mendl and N. Meyer and A. Nobile and I. Ouda and M. Pivanti and D. Pleiter and M. Ries and A. Schäfer and H. Schick and F. Schifano and H. Simma and S. Solbrig and T. Streuer and K. -H. Sulanke and R. Tripiccione and J. -S. Vogt and T. Wettig and F. Winter},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0911.2174},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
21 pages. Poster by T. Maurer and plenary talk by D. Pleiter presented at the "XXVII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory", July 26-31 2009, Peking University, Beijing, China. Information on recent Green500 ranking added and list of authors extended