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GE

Intelligent Platforms

GPGPU

COTS Platforms

High-Performance Computing Solutions

Rugged GPGPU COTS Boards for Military and Aerospace

GPGPU platforms deliver new levels of performance for size, weight and power (SWaP) constrained mission payloads.

The world of high-performance computing is undergoing a revolution, thanks to advances in General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU). The idea behind GPGPU is to use a GPU, which typically handles computation for computer graphics only, to perform parallel computation in applications that have traditionally been handled by the CPU.

A multi-GPU platform hosted by one or more CPUs is able to perform heterogeneous computing, harnessing the parallel computing power of the many-core GPUs to provide very large increases in performance with minimal programming complexity.

PARALLEL COMPUTING

2 cores 96 cores

Optimized for throughput computing

Additionally, programmers are helped with software development environments such as Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) and OpenCL, which allow them to harness the many-core, parallel processing capabilities of the GPGPU platforms.

While greatly increasing functional capability, the GPGPU platform also delivers the performance with far less size, weight and power (SWaP). This results in significant savings in cost, risk, and time-to-market.

Lab-proven technologies ruggedized for the rough and tumble world of military applications

Now these benefits are fully available for rugged military and aerospace applications. With the introduction of a full range of GE Intelligent Platforms rugged GPGPU boards and systems, the advantages of GPGPU are no longer confined to controlled environments at universities, research centers and hospitals.

The unique partnership between GE Intelligent Platforms and NVIDIA allows for new product development using NVIDIA GPUs based on the award-winning CUDA architecture, for Military and Aerospace applications.

2 GPGPU • WWW.GE -IP.COM/GPGPU

Enhanced Performance for

Far Less Size, Weight and Power

The graph shows GFLOPs performance for the VSIPL multiple FFT operation. It compares performance on different GE Intelligent Platforms embedded platforms;

a GPU platform, multi-core Intel Penryn and i5 platforms and an e600 based PowerPC platform. GE’s platform-optimized AXISLib DSP library product is used on all platforms. Data is in GPU memory for the GPU case and in-cache for the Intel and PPC cases.

MULTIPLE FFT PERFORMANCE - GPU vs INTEL

GFLOPs

60.00
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
000256	001024	004096	016384	065536	131072
000256	000100	000050	000020	000020	000020

GT240/CUDA VSIPL Penryn - 2 threads i5 - 2 threads

i5 - 4 threads PPC - 1 thread

MATRIX SIZE

INCREASING PERFORMANCE ADVANTAGE OF GPU

PEAK PERFORMANCE (Gflop/Watt)

PEAK MEMORY BANDWITH (GB/sec)

10	GPU	GeForce 480M	100	GPU
8	CPU		80	CPU	GeForce 8800M
6		GeForce 240M	60		GeForce Go 7800
4	Magic1 – G73	G92	40		Nehalem
					3 GHz
2	G70		20	Harpertown
		Core i7		3 GHz

0							Pentium M								Core 2 Quad														0
2003						2004				2005			2006			2007			2008			2009			2010				2003		2004			2005			2006			2007			2008			2009			2010

GE’s new GPGPU platforms are particularly well-suited to many of the processing needs of Military and Aerospace applications where size, weight and power are key considerations along with resistance to extended temperature, shock and vibration. GPGPU technology allows system designers to pack more punch into less space and use less power for your applications.

	SIZE					WEIGHT	POWER
Industrial Standard
(576 Gflops)
		4 cu				105 lbs	2000 W
								REDUCTION IN:
GPGPU Products								• COST
(766 Gflops)						10 lbs	200 W	• RISK
	0.8 cu							• TIME TO MARKET

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Rugged GPGPU COTS Boards for Military and Aerospace

Radar

One of the biggest challenges for today’s radar systems is to provide more capa- bility—range, number of targets, speed, etc. —while meeting ever more stringent SWaP constraints. The extra speed offered by the GPGPU platforms translates directly to more area coverage and more security for the operating team.

One rack containing 72 conventional processors (18 6U boards) and producing a peak capability of 576 GFLOPS can take up 4 cubic feet, weigh over 105 pounds and

consume over 2000 watts. GPGPU technology can allow system designers

to fit an unprecedented amount of processing power into a

very compact package. The use of three 3U VPX boards can yield peak processing power of 766 GFLOPS in less

than 0.4 cubic feet.

Development Ease

Increases in performance will be obtained in application areas such as Software Defined Radio, sonar, and medical imaging. But what is less obvious is the change in development strategy offered by GPGPU technology. The only other technology currently offering massively parallel processing capability is Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Although FPGAs provide very highperformance data processing, developing high-performance FPGA cores requires a very specialized skill set built on a hardware engineering background, whereas developing code for GPGPU processors is much more of a software issue. For companies with a background in multi-processor GPP/ DSP-based system architecture, the move to GPGPU will be much less disruptive than a move to FPGA processors. The processing power, system size and power consumption are compelling factors, but the addition of programming ease makes such a system tough to match.

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