http://www.physorg.com/news102087207.html

Maryland Professor Creates Desktop Supercomputer

Clark School of Engineering - University of Maryland

A prototype of what may be the next generation of personal computers has
been developed by researchers in the University of Maryland's A. James Clark
School of Engineering. Capable of computing speeds 100 times faster than
current desktops, the technology is based on parallel processing on a single
chip.
Parallel processing is an approach that allows the computer to perform many
different tasks simultaneously, a sharp contrast to the serial approach
employed by conventional desktop computers. The prototype developed by Uzi
Vishkin and his Clark School colleagues uses a circuit board about the size
of a license plate on which they have mounted 64 parallel processors. To
control those processors, they have developed the crucial parallel computer
organization that allows the processors to work together and make
programming practical and simple for software developers.

"The single-chip supercomputer prototype built by Prof. Uzi Vishkin's group
uses rich algorithmic theory to address the practical problem of building an
easy-to-program multicore computer," said Charles E. Leiserson, professor of
computer science and engineering at MIT. "Vishkin's chip unites the theory
of yesterday with the reality of today."

Desktop Parallel Processing

Parallel processing on a massive scale using numerous interconnected chips
or computers has been used for years to create supercomputers. However, its
application to desktop systems has been a challenge because of severe
programming complexities. The Clark School team found a way to use single
chip parallel processing technology to change that.

Vishkin, a professor in the Clark School's electrical and computer
engineering department and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced
Computer Studies (UMIACS), explained the advantage of parallel processing
like this: "Suppose you hire one person to clean your home, and it takes
five hours, or 300 minutes, for the person to perform each task, one after
the other," Vishkin said. "That's analogous to the current serial processing
method. Now imagine that you have 100 cleaning people who can work on your
home at the same time! That's the parallel processing method.

"The 'software' challenge is: Can you manage all the different tasks and
workers so that the job is completed in 3 minutes instead of 300?" Vishkin
continued. "Our algorithms make that feasible for general-purpose computing
tasks for the first time."

Vishkin and his team are now demonstrating their technology, which in future
devices could include 1,000 processors on a chip the size of a finger nail,
to government and industry groups. To show how easy it is to program,
Vishkin is also providing access to the prototype to students at Montgomery
Blair High School in Montgomery County, Md.

From Theory to Reality

For years, the personal computer industry achieved advancements in computer
clock speed, the fundamental rate at which a computer performs operations,
thanks to innovations in chip fabrication technologies and miniaturization.
Moore's Lawwhich dictates that the number of transistors on integrated
circuits in computers will double every 18 to 24 monthswas coupled with a
corresponding improvement in clock speed.
But no advancements in clock speed have been achieved since 2004. From an
early stage, Vishkin foresaw that Moore's Law would ultimately fail to help
improve clock speed due to physical limitations. This has guided his
perseverance over his professional career in seeking to improve computer
productivity by distributing the load among multiple processors,
accomplishing computer tasks in parallel.

In 1979, Vishkin, a pioneer in parallel computing, began his work on
developing a theory of parallel algorithms that relied on a mathematical
model of a parallel computer, since, at that time, no viable parallel
prototype existed. By 1997, advances in technology enabled him to begin
building a prototype desktop device to test his theory; he and his team
completed the device in December 2006.

The prototype device's physical hardware attributes are strikingly
ordinarystandard computer components executing at 75 MHz. It is the
device's parallel architecture, ease of programming and processing
performance relative to other computers with the same clock speed that get
people's attention.

"Based on the very positive reactions of my graduate students this spring,"
Vishkin stated, "I knew that it was time to take the technology public."

Earlier this month, Vishkin and his Ph.D. student, Xingzhi Wen, published a
paper about his newly-built parallel processing technology for the
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Symposium on Parallelism in
Algorithms and Architectures, and showcased it at a major computing
conference, the ACM International Conference on Supercomputing (ICS) in
Seattle.

At the ICS event, Vishkin allowed conference participants to connect to the
device remotely and run programs on it in a full-day tutorial session he
conducted, offering colleagues and student participants the opportunity to
experience the prototype technology firsthand.

Vishkin also participated in a panel discussion at a special invitation-only
Microsoft Workshop on Many-Core Computing on June 20-21 in Seattle, Wash. In
August, Vishkin will present a keynote address at the Workshop on Highly
Parallel Processing on a Chip in Rennes, France, held in conjunction with
the 13th Euro-Par, an international European conference on parallel and
distributed computing.

"This system represents a significant improvement in generality and
flexibility for parallel computer systems because of its unique abilities,"
said Burton Smith, technical fellow for advanced strategies and policy at
Microsoft. "It will be able to exploit a wider spectrum of parallel
algorithms than today's microprocessors can, and this in turn will help
bring general purpose parallel computing closer to reality."

Vishkin has filed several patents on his parallel processing technology
since 1997. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of
Defense, his research has also received significant interest from the
computer industry, which he believes his technology will revitalize.

"The manufacturers have done an excellent job over the years of increasing a
single processor's clock speed through clever miniaturization strategies and
new materials," he noted. "But they have now reached the limits of this
approach. It is time for a practical alternative that will allow a new wave
of innovation and growthand that's what we have created with our parallel
computing technology."

In addition to Xingzhi Wen, Vishkin's research teams includes students Aydin
Balkan, George Caragea, Mike Detwiler, Tom Dubois, Mike Horak, Fuat Keceli,
Mary Kiemb and Alex Tzannes, as well as electrical and computer engineering
professors Rajeev Barua and Gang Qu.

Naming Contest

To increase awareness of his new technology, Vishkin is inviting the public
to propose names for it. The name should reflect the features and bold
aspirations of the new machine and its parallel computing capabilities,
Vishkin said.

The winner will receive a $500 cash prize and be credited with the naming of
the innovative technology. Visitors can submit their ideas online
(http://www.ece.umd.edu/supercomputer/). The deadline for submissions is
September 15, 2007.

Source: University of Maryland

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Ken

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