The Leading High-Performance Computing Accelerator Solution
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(Business Wire)--
Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) and XtremeData, Inc. today
announced availability of the industry's fastest FPGA/Intel(R) Xeon(R)
processor-based front-side bus (FSB) module. Equipped with multiple
Altera(R) Stratix(R) III FPGAs and using Intel QuickAssist Technology,
the XtremeData XD2000i In-Socket Accelerator (ISA) showcases this
powerful 1066 MHz coprocessing solution.
The XD2000i family offers the highest density Stratix III FPGAs in
the smallest footprint available in the market. The module uses three
FPGAs, one as a bridge to system resources in Intel Xeon
processor-based servers, leaving the other two available to run user
applications in typically found in military, financial, medical and
bioscience markets.
"The fast fabric and I/O capabilities of Stratix III FPGAs are
validated in this module by achieving a stable 1,066 MHz FSB speed,"
said Dr. Misha Burich, Altera's senior vice president of research and
development. "Stratix III FPGAs also demonstrate the benefits of the
digital signal processing architecture for algorithms with floating
point data."
XD2000i coprocessor modules substantially accelerate applications
via parallelization and pipelining, while simultaneously reducing
overall system power consumption and latency. In the Stratix III
FPGA-based FSB module, a 4X acceleration is expected when running the
Monte Carlo Black-Scholes algorithm in double-precision floating point
when compared to RapidMind's graphics processing unit (GPU)
single-precision results published earlier this year for one million
paths per option. The XD2000i module also enjoys power, space and
memory error correction coding (ECC) advantages over current GPUs:
power is sub-60W and the module can be packed densely into a blade
form factor. This FPGA coprocessing solution opens up a number of new
opportunities in markets where Intel-based servers are presently being
used.
"For Monte Carlo applications, the XD2000i with Altera's Stratix
III EP3S260 FPGA in full double-precision floating point achieves
approximately a 16X improvement, when measured on the performance/watt
metric, of a high-end single-precision GPU," said Ravi Chandran, CEO
of XtremeData. "This enables hedge funds, investment banks and
boutique trading houses to dramatically lower their power profile and
total footprint of datacenters that focus on financial algorithms."
The combination of an Intel Xeon 5000 series processor and a
Stratix III FPGA coprocessor in the XD2000i module provides customers
with the highest performance FSB accelerator available while
delivering significant cost, power and space savings.
"The XD2000i module utilizing Stratix III FPGAs offers superior
performance for certain algorithms on Intel-based platforms," said
Dylan Larson, director, server software and technology initiatives,
Digital Enterprise Group, Intel Corporation. "The Intel QuickAssist
Technology framework has enabled an innovative development environment
for coprocessing solutions from companies such as Altera and
XtremeData."
Intel is enabling tightly coupled, in-socket, FPGA-based
accelerators. Placing the Stratix III FPGA-based XD2000i in one of the
Intel Xeon processor sockets gives the coprocessor a high-speed link
to memory as well as a fast connection to the host processor, without
requiring board modifications, thus providing designers with a simple
hardware integration path. A new version of the XD2000i module will be
available in the third quarter of this year that will work with quad
socket boards to provide over 500K logic elements (LEs) and 1,536
multipliers with separate FSB processor interconnect.
Availability
The entire XD2000i family of ISAs for Intel Xeon dual-processor
platforms is now shipping in production volumes. Additionally, the
Intel Xeon multiprocessor versions of the XD2000i ISA family will be
available in the third quarter of 2008. For pricing and additional
information, please contact XtremeData at
www.xtremedatainc.com/xtremeteam.
About XtremeData
XtremeData, Inc. creates hardware-accelerated database analytics
appliances and is the inventor and leader in FPGA-based ISAs. The
company offers many different appliances and FPGA-based ISA solutions
for markets such as decision support systems, financial analytics,
video transcoding, life sciences, military and wireless. Founded in
2003, XtremeData is privately held and has two established locations.
Headquarters are located in Schaumburg, Illinois, and a software
development location in Bangalore, India. For more information, visit
www.xtremedatainc.com.
About Altera
Altera programmable solutions enable system and semiconductor
companies to rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate and
win in their markets. Find out more at www.altera.com.
Altera, The Programmable Solutions Company, the stylized Altera
logo, specific device designations and all other words that are
identified as trademarks and/or service marks are, unless noted
otherwise, the trademarks and service marks of Altera Corporation in
the U.S. and other countries. Intel and Intel Xeon are registered
trademarks of Intel Corporation.
Altera Corporation
Jim Adams, 408-544-7396
newsroom@altera.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
