ARMv8-A

2016: ARM Entry into Supercomputer Processor Market

On August 22, 2016, ARM Holdings announced Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) processor technology, with which the British company plans to master the supercomputer market, challenging Intel and IBM.

SVE is an extension for the ARMv8-A architecture, thanks to which processor developers will be able to choose the appropriate length of the vector register from 128 to 2048 bits in increments of 128 bits. The update supports the vector-length agnostic (VLA) programming model, which allows you to adapt to the existing length of the vector.

Fujitsu will install processors on the ARMv8-A architecture with SVE support in its supercomputer

ARM notes that the program code written using SVE will not require optimization in the future. Depending on the hardware implementation of the processor, the optimal discharge of vectors will be chosen during calculations.

SVE is designed to create server solutions and equipment for high-performance computing (HPC).

One of the first companies to decide to use the license for ARM v8-A with SVE support was the Japanese Fujitsu. She plans to apply the new architecture to the Post-K Riken supercomputer, which is due to earn by 2020. Fujitsu abandoned the proven SPARC architecture in favor of ARM, which, however, will not only not negatively affect performance, but will also increase it in new systems.

It is assumed that Post-K Riken will become 50-100 times faster than its predecessor K Computer, which by August 2016 is the fifth largest supercomputer in the world, having a peak performance of 10.5 petaflops. K Computer is based on the SPARC64 Vfx processor created in Fujitsu.

Vector processors were used in the first supercomputers, but then they were replaced by the less expensive IBM RISC chips. By 2016, most high-performance servers have x86 processors. The new ARM development could change the balance of power in the HPC market.^[1]

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