Reconfigurable Computing Cluster (RCC) Project: Investigating the Feasibility of FPGA-Based Petascale Computing

While medium- and large-sized computing centers have increasingly relied on clusters of commodity PC hardware to provide cost-effective capacity and capability, it is not clear that this technology will scale to the PetaFLOP range. It is expected that semiconductor technology will continue its exponential advancements over next fifteen years; however, new issues are rapidly emerging and the relative importance of current performance metrics are shifting. Future PetaFLOP architectures will require system designers to solve computer architecture problems ranging from how to house, power, and cool the machine, all-the-while remaining sensitive to cost. The Reconfigurable Computing Cluster (RCC) project is a multi-institution, multi-disciplinary project investigating the use of FPGAs to build cost-effective petascale computers. This paper describes the nascent project's objectives and a 64-node prototype cluster. Specifically, the aim is to provide an detailed motivation for the proj...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: FCCM
• Authors: Ron Sass, William V. Kritikos, Andrew G. Schmidt, Srinivas Beeravolu, Parag Beeraka
• Keywords: 64-node Prototype Cluster, FCCM 2007, Large-sized Computing Centers, Reconfigurable Computing Cluster, VLSI