Supercomputer Technology Research Articles

SUPRENUM: A trendsetter in modern supercomputer development

The designer of a numerical supercomputer is confronted with fundamental design decisions stemming from some basic dichotomies in supercomputer technology and architecture. On the side of the hardware technology there exists the dichotomy between the use of very high-speed circuitry or very large-scale integrated circuitry. On the side of the architecture there exists the dichotomy between the SIMD vector machine and the MIMD multiprocessor architecture. In the latter case, the ‘nodes’ of the system may communicate through shared memory, or each node has only private memory, and communication takes place through the exchange of messages. All these design decisions have implications with respect to performance, cost-effectiveness, software complexity, and fault-tolerance. In the paper the various dichotomies are discussed and a rationale is provided for the decision to realize the SUPRENUM supercomputer, a large ‘number cruncher’ with 5 Gflops peak performance, in the form of a massively parallel MIMD/SIMD multicomputer architecture. In its present incorporation, SUPRENUM is configurable to up to 256 nodes, where each node is a pipeline vector machine with 20 Mflops peak performance, IEEE double precision. The crucial issues of such an architecture, which we consider the trendsetter for future numerical supercomputer architecture in general, are on the hardware side the need for a bottleneck-free interconnection structure as well as the highest possible node performance obtained with the highest possible packaging density, in order to accommodate a node on a single circuit board. On the side of the system software the design goal is to obtain an adequately high degree of operational safety and data security with minimum software overhead. On the side of the user an appropriate program development environment must be provided. Last but not least, the system must exhibit a high degree of fault tolerance, if for nothing else but for the sake of obtaining a sufficiently high MTBF. In the paper a detailed discussion of the hardware and software architecture of the SUPRENUM supercomputer, whose design is based upon the considerations discussed, is presented. A largely bottleneck-free interconnection structure is accomplished in a hierarchical manner: the machine consists of up to 16 ‘clusters’, and each cluster consists of 16 working ‘nodes’ plus some organisational nodes. The node is accommodated on a single circuit board; its architecture is based on the principle of data structure architecture explained in the paper. SUPRENUM is strictly a message-based system; consequently, the local node operating system has been designed to handle a secured message exchange with a considerable degree of hardware support and with the lowest possible software overhead. SUPRENUM is organized as a distributed system—a prerequisite for the high degree of fault tolerance required; therefore, there exists no centralized global operating system. The paper concludes with an outlook on the performance limits of a future supercomputer architecture of the SUPRENUM type.

Route guidance systems for improving urban travel and location choices

Recent technological advances in navigation systems for private vehicles have the capability to provide drivers with highway route information on a dashboard-mounted video display screen. These technological advances, together with two-way radio communication of digital information, automatic measurement of traffic flows, and supercomputer technology, could be combined to provide useful information to drivers concerning expected travel times, best routes, and best departure times. This paper reviews the status of this technology and explores the information and prediction requirements for the computer models required to implement such a system. Research needed to evaluate the potential impact of such a system is also described.

Unified interactive geometric modeller for simulating highly complex environments

The advent of supercomputer technology has greatly increased the power available to process and analyse larger and more complex geometric models than are currently in use. A comprehensive experimental geometric modelling system is presented, which exploits this new technology by allowing for the description of highly complex environments, providing flexible creation and editing facilities, and introducing the capability to model dynamic environments. The system interfaces to various shading and realistic image synthesis routines, and attempts to overcome the restrictions of current display technology. Close attention is paid to the user interface so as not to limit interaction to any particular modelling methodology. To this end, a variety of geometries, an expandable set of object generation routines, and many geometric editing tools are supported. Hierarchical and adjacency associations are also definable between the elements in an environment. To provide a means for dynamic simulation, tools to define object motion are also provided. Environment descriptions are organized into a partitioned database, composed of hierarchical and relational data constructs, allowing for selective subdivision of a complex model into component units and efficient database management.

Japanese Supercomputer Technology

Under the auspices of the Ministry for International Trade and Industry the Japanese have launched a National Superspeed Computer Project intended to produce high-performance computers for scientific computation and a Fifth-Generation Computer Project intended to incorporate and exploit concepts of artificial intelligence. If these projects are successful, which appears likely, advanced economic and military research in the United States may become dependent on access to supercomputers of foreign manufacture.