Shuji Yamamura

Performance prediction of large-scale parallell system and application using macro-level simulation

To predict application performance on an HPC system is an important technology for designing the computing system and developing applications. However, accurate prediction is a challenge, particularly, in the case of a future coming system with higher performance. In this paper, we present a new method for predicting application performance on HPC systems. This method combines modeling of sequential performance on a single processor and macro-level simulations of applications for parallel performance on the entire system. In the simulation, the execution flow is traced but kernel computations are omitted for reducing the execution time. Validation on a real terascale system showed that the predicted and measured performance agreed within 10% to 20 %. We employed the method in designing a hypothetical petascale system of 32768 SIMD-extended processor cores. For predicting application performance on the petascale system, the macro-level simulation required several hours.

Sparc64 VIIIfx: A New-Generation Octocore Processor for Petascale Computing

The Sparc64 VIIIfx eight-core processor, developed for use in petascale computing systems, runs at speeds of up to 2 GHz and achieves a peak performance of 128 gigaflops while consuming as little as 58 watts of power. Sparc64 VIIIfx realizes a six-fold improvement in performance per watt over previous generation Sparc64 processors.