Reconfigurable supercomputing
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 | This article contains promotional content. (August 2011) |
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| This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. (August 2011) |
Reconfigurable Supercomputing is a new direction in Supercomputing, where Reconfigurable Computing methods are adopted by supercomputer architectures, such as those based on FPGAs. From FPGA usage as accelerators, speed-up factors by up to two orders of magnitude are reported. Algorithmic cleverness is the secret of success, based on software to configware migration mechanisms, striving away from memory-cycle-hungry instruction-stream-based computing paradigms also using memory-cycle-hungry data movement methods. A new kind operating system modules as well as new compilation techniques are needed to ease usage.
A main hurdle on the way to new horizons of cheap highest performance are CS-related educational deficits causing the configware / software chasm and a methodology fragmentation between the different cultures of application domains. New directions in CS-related curricula are needed which are focused on a dual paradigm approach (instruction-stream-based and data-stream-based).