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Parallella Aims to Bring Supercomputing to the Masses

Over the last few years, we haven’t seen the kind of gains in computing speed that one might expect if you’re strictly following Moore’s Law. We’re beginning to run into limits on the frequency of any single CPU or GPU, and one of the modern ways to get past this limitation is through the use of parallel computing architectures.

However, programming for parallel chips hasn’t been an easy transition for traditional programmers, and the technology has largely remained the domain of high-end engineering projects. However, one company is pushing an initiative to bring parallel computing to everyone.

atapteva parallela cpu

Adapteva has been producing multicore chips with 16 cores for a little over a year now, and is now testing a 64-core chip. The plan now is to produce a low-cost parallel processing kit for as little as $99. The hope is by providing fully open source hardware and software, development for and adoption of parallel processing would increase dramatically. As this takes hold, the plan is to launch a computing platform called “Parallella.” According to Adapteva: “Once completed, the Parallella computer should deliver up to 45 GHz of equivalent CPU performance on a board the size of a credit card while consuming only 5 Watts under typical work loads. Counting GHz, this is more horsepower than a high end server costing thousands of dollars and consuming 400W.”

By launching its first kits on Kickstarter, the company aims to drive production costs down dramatically, and in exchange will open source the chipset as well as all documentation and software. The $99 kit will put an Epiphany-III based Parallella board in your hands, including a dual-core ARM A9 CPU, as well as 16 Epiphany cores on board and development software.

A pledge of $199 or more will get you the upcoming 64-core Epiphany-IV board – if the project is able to reach a stretch goal of $3 million. With 17 days left to go, the project has raised nearly $300,000 of its $750,000 goal, so there’s a way to go. If you’re into tinkering with the latest in technology, and want to see what you can do with an extremely powerful chip, then you might want to get in on the project and pledge.


Insert Coin: The Parallella project dreams of $99 supercomputers

In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line.

Insert Coin: The Parallella project dreams of $99 supercomputers

Parallel computing is normally reserved for supercomputers way out of the reach of average users -- at least at the moment, anyway. Adapteva wants to challenge that with its Parallella project, designed to bring mouth-watering power to a board similar in size to the Raspberry Pi for as little as $99. It hopes to deliver up to 45GHz (in total) using its Epiphany multicore accelerators, that crucially, only chug 5 watts of juice under normal conditions. These goliath speeds currently mean high costs, which is why they need your funds to move out of the prototype stage and start cheap mass production. Specs for the board are as follows: a dual-core ARM A9 CPU running Ubuntu OS as standard, 1GB RAM, a microSD slot, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, Ethernet and a 16- or 64-core accelerator, with each core housing a 1GHz RISC processor, all linked "within a single shared memory architecture."

An overriding theme of the Parallella project is the openness of the platform. When finalized, the full board design will be released, and each one will ship with free, open-source development tools and runtime libraries. In addition, full architecture and SDK documentation will be published online if-and-when the Kickstarter project reaches its funding goal of $750,000. That's pretty ambitious, but we're reminded of another crowd-funded venture which completely destroyed an even larger target. However, that sum will only be enough for Adapteva to produce the 16-core board, which reportedly hits 13GHz and 26 gigaflops, and is expected to set you back a measly $99. A speculative $3 million upper goal has been set for work to begin on the $199 64-core version, topping out at 45GHz and 90 gigaflops. Pledge options range from $99 to $5,000-plus, distinguished mainly by how soon you'll get your hands on one. Big spenders will also be the first to receive a 64-core board when they become available. Adapteva's Andreas Olofsson talks through the Parallella project in a video after the break, but if you're already sold on the tiny supercomputer, head over to the source link to contribute before the October 27th closing date.

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