Ambric
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Ambric-architecture processors, are developed and marketed by a division of Nethra, a fabless semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California. Nethra purchased the Ambric technology in early 2009. Ambric the company was founded in 2003 and the current team, all from the original startup, is still based in Beaverton, Oregon. Nethra's MPPA group produces Massively Parallel Processor Array (MPPA) chips, primarily for high-performance embedded systems such as medical, imaging, video, and signal-processing.
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[edit] Architecture and Programming Model
The Ambric-architecture is a massively parallel distributed memory multiprocessor, based on the Structural Object Programming Model.[1][2] Each processor is programmed in conventional Java (a strict subset) and/or assembly code. The hundreds of processors on the chip send data and control messages to one another through an interconnect of reconfigurable, self-synchronizing channels, which provide both communication and synchronization.[3] The model of computation is very similar to a Kahn process network with bounded buffers.
[edit] Devices and Tools
The Am2045 device has 336 32-bit RISC-DSP fixed-point processors and 336 2-kB memories, which run at up to 300 MHz. It has an Eclipse-based integrated development environment including editor, compiler, assemblers, simulator, configuration generator, source-code debugger and video/image-processing, signal-processing, and video-codec libraries.
[edit] Power and Performance
The Am2045 delivers 0.1 (edit: was 1.0) TeraOPS (Operations Per Second) and 50 Giga-MACs (Multply-Accumulates per second) of fixed-point processing with 6-12W of power consumed (dependent on the application).
[edit] Applications
Nethra's MPPA devices are used for high-definition, 2K and 4K video compression, transcoding and analysis, image recognition, medical imaging, signal-processing, software defined radio and other compute-intensive streaming media applications, which otherwise would use FPGA, DSP and/or ASIC chips. The company claims advantages such as higher performance and energy efficiency, scalability, higher productivity due to software programming rather than hardware design, and off-the-shelf availability.
Video codec libraries are available for a variety of professional camera and video editing formats such as DVCPRO HD, VC-3(DNxHD), AVC-Intra and others.
[edit] Related
Other MPPAs include picoChip and IntellaSys, and the UC Davis's AsAP research chip. Related multicore devices include Aspex, Cavium, ClearSpeed, SPI, Tilera and others. The more established processor companies Texas Instruments and Freescale are also starting to do multicore products, but at present with a lower number of processors (typically 3-8) and have traditional shared-memory, timing-sensitive programming models.
[edit] Recognition
Microprocessor Report gave a 2006 MPR Analysts’ Choice Award for Innovation for the Ambric-architecture "for the design concept and architecture of its massively parallel processor, the Am2045".[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Mike Butts, Anthony Mark Jones, Paul Wasson, "A Structural Object Programming Model, Architecture, Chip and Tools for Reconfigurable Computing", Proceedings of FCCM, April 2007, IEEE Computer Society
- ^ Anthony Mark Jones, Mike Butts. "TeraOPS Hardware: A New Massively-Parallel MIMD Computing Fabric IC", IEEE Hot Chips Symposium, August 2006, IEEE Computer Society
- ^ Mike Butts, "Synchronization through Communication in a Massively Parallel Processor Array", IEEE Micro, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 32-40, September/October 2007, IEEE Computer Society
- ^ Microprocessor Report Announces First Group of Winners for the Eighth Annual MPR Analysts’ Choice Awards, February 20, 2007, [1]
[edit] Further reading
- Tom Halfhill, "Ambric's New Parallel Processor", Microprocessor Report, October 10, 2006.
- Tom Halfhill, "MPR Innovation Award: Ambric", Microprocessor Report, February 20, 2007.
