Post-K (supercomputer)

2018: The output of the ARM processor for the Post-K supercomputer

In June, 2018 Fujitsu announced creation of the most powerful ARM processor for supercomputers. It to be used in the Japan's first supercomputer with an eksaflopsny performance  (10^18 transactions with a floating comma per second) — Post-K. The presentation took place within ISC High Performance 2018 in Frankfurt.

It is the first chip constructed on architecture of ARMv8-A Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) which significantly expands possibilities of the ARM platform regarding vector processing. SVE is intended for acceleration of computing applications, in particular, of the scientific and engineering modeling relying on use of double-precision arithmetics, says Fujitsu.

Comparison of processors in the K Computer and Post-K supercomputers

The processor is supplied with 48 main cores and also two or four additional, intended for input-output operations, providing the asynchronous interface of message exchange of MPI and other tasks. The hardware for vector transactions is 512-bit that is four times wider than the 128-bit vector block of the SPARC64 VIIIfx processor used in the K Computer supercomputer.  Instead of it Post-K is created.

It is planned that the Post-K supercomputer will use up to  40  MW of energy whereas the predecessor consumed 12.7  MW. However at this Post-K should show  100 times above than performance.

According to the director of the center of computing sciences at  RIKEN institute (the partner of Fujitsu in Post-K construction) Satoshi Matsuoka, the ARM processor of Fujitsu created for the supercomputer has much higher performance in comparison with other server chips used for supercomputer tasks.

At first it is going to use the processor for testing of functions of the supercomputer. The commercial version of the chip will be ready by the time of completion of construction and start of the Post-K system, i.e. by 2021.^[1]

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