EURETILE 2010-2012 summary: first three years of activity of the European Reference Tiled Experiment

Abstract

Abstract This is the summary of first three years of activity of the EURETILE FP7 project 247846. EURETILE investigates and implements brain-inspired and fault-tolerant foundational innovations to the system architecture of massively parallel tiled computer architectures and the corresponding programming paradigm. The execution targets are a many-tile HW platform, and a many-tile simulator. A set of SW process - HW tile mapping candidates is generated by the holistic SW tool-chain using a combination of analytic and bio-inspired methods. The Hardware dependent Software is then generated, providing OS services with maximum efficiency/minimal overhead. The many-tile simulator collects profiling data, closing the loop of the SW tool chain. Fine-grain parallelism inside processes is exploited by optimized intra-tile compilation techniques, but the project focus is above the level of the elementary tile. The elementary HW tile is a multi-processor, which includes a fault tolerant Distributed Network Processor (for inter-tile communication) and ASIP accelerators. Furthermore, EURETILE investigates and implements the innovations for equipping the elementary HW tile with high-bandwidth, low-latency brain-like inter-tile communication emulating 3 levels of connection hierarchy, namely neural columns, cortical areas and cortex, and develops a dedicated cortical simulation benchmark: DPSNN-STDP (Distributed Polychronous Spiking Neural Net with synaptic Spiking Time Dependent Plasticity). EURETILE leverages on the multi-tile HW paradigm and SW tool-chain developed by the FET-ACA SHAPES Integrated Project (2006-2009). The APE Parallel Computing Lab of INFN Roma is in charge of the EURETILE HW Design (QUonG system/APENet+ board/DNP (Distributed Network Processor) and Scientific Application Benchmarks. The Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory (TIK) of ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) designs the high-level explicit parallel programming and automatic mapping tool (DOL/DAL) and a set of “Embedded Systems” benchmarks. The Software for Systems on Silicon (SSS) of the ISS institute of RWTH Aachen, investigates and provides the parallel simulation technology and scalable simulation-based profiling/debugging support. The TIMA Laboratory of the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble explores and deploys the HdS (Hardware dependent Software) including the distributed OS architecture. TARGET Compiler Technologies, the Belgian leading provider of retargetable software tools and compilers for the design, programming, and verification of application-specific processors (ASIPs), is in charge of the HW/SW Co-design tools for custom components of the EURETILE architecture. Grant Agreement no. 247846 Call: FP7-ICT-2009-4 Objective FET-ICT-2009.8.1 Concurrent Tera-device Computing Scientific Coordinator: Pier Stanislao Paolucci, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Roma, Italy Administrative Coordinator: Michela Giovagnoli, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Roma, Italy