Vol.3 No.4 (December, 2008)

Special Issue: Supercomputer SX-9

Supercomputer SX-9 Hardware

NAKAZATO Satoshi ・TAGAYA Satoru ・NAKAGOMI Norihito ・
WATAI Takayuki ・SAWAMURA Akihiro

The CPU of the SX-9 uses 8 sets of vector pipelines to achieve a high performance over 100GFLOPS with a single unit. The memory with a maximum 1T-byte capacity can be shared by up to 16 CPUs, the data transfer between the CPU and MMU has a maximum of 4T bytes/sec and that between the I/O unit and the MMU has a maximum of 64G bytes/sec. × 2.This paper describes the CPU, memory and I/O processing unit of the SX-9 system featuring such high performances.

ANDO Noriyuki ・KASUGA Yasuhiro ・SUZUKI Masaki ・YAMAMOTO Takahito

The internode connection system of the SX-9 is a dedicated high-speed network with high scalability that accommodates up to 512 nodes. It not only provides high internode data transfer throughput but also implements short communication latency thanks to the functions provided by RCU and IXS. This paper is intended to introduce the configuration, features, functions, performance and architecture of the internode connection system that is built in to the SX-9 system.

TANAHASHI Toshio ・TSUCHIDA Junichi ・MATSUZAWA Hajime ・NIWA Kenji ・SATOH Tatsuo ・KATAGIRI Masaru

This paper outlines the LSI and circuit technologies of the SX-9 as well as their inspection technologies. NEC Corporation has developed its advanced CMOS technology jointly with NEC Electronics Corporation for use with the SX-9 and has also developed a high-speed interface technology for ultra-high-speed data transfer, high speed and low skew clock distribution technologies and noise reduction and inspection technologies for use in the inspection of the above.

UMEZAWA Kazuhiko ・HAMAGUCHI Hiroyuki ・TAKEDA Tsutomu ・HOSAKA Tadao ・
NATORI Masaki ・NAGATA Tetsuya

This paper is intended to outline the packaging technology used with the SX-9. With the aim of enabling the CPUs implemented with the world’s highest single core performance to exhibit their maximum performances; the SX-9 makes full use of high-density LSI packaging technology, high-density connection technology, high-efficiency packaging technology and high-performance power supply technology. These technologies are packaged with the aim of achieving an excellent system effective performance with a wide memory bandwidth of 4T bytes/sec. per node. The SX-9 adopts an advanced design in order to appeal its high performances both of the processors and the system to the users.

KONNO Yoshihiro ・IKAWA Yasuhiro ・SAWANO Tomoki ・KANAMARU Keisuke ・
ONO Koki ・KUMAZAKI Masahito

This paper outlines the design techniques and CAD technology used with the SX-9.The LSI and package design of the SX-9 was subjected to various requirements, including: compatibility with larger scales; higher speed; power saving; further miniaturization; methods of verification; reduction of design lead time; improvement of design efficiency; and improvement of design quality. These requirements were met with the SX-9 through advanced integration of design techniques and CAD technology.

KOBAYASHI Katsumi ・YONEMURA Takashi ・TAKAHASHI Kiyoaki ・NAKASO Hiroko

The Supercomputer SX-9 concentrates improvement technologies that have been refined over NEC’s long years of experience in order to meet the requirements of high reliability and to provide support for the circuitry to the system levels. Reliability, Availability and Serviceability are thus attained at more advanced levels.This paper introduces the RAS technology based on the latest innovations of the SX-9.

Storage Area Network Products

FUJIMORI Hideaki ・TAKIYANAGI Masumi ・TANAKA Yoji

The recent explosive dissemination of broadband has been increasing the volume of data in e-mails and movie contents at a rate of 160% per year and an assortment of data is now being exchanged via the Internet. As a result of this trend, the topics attracting special attention with regard to the types of storage used in IT systems are; the sudden increase in the data volume, complications related to data management and the important effects accompanying suspensions of operations. This paper discusses the storage device solutions that are being offered by NEC to confront these issues. These are the “iStorage D8” featuring particularly high scalability, manageability and availability and the “iStorage D1/D3,”which features an especially high cost efficiency, a simple introduction process and a space-saving design.

Supercomputer Operating System & Program Development Environment

TOMARU Hiroko ・MIYAZAKI Emiko ・OHTANI Atsuhisa ・SATAKE Koji ・
SAKAI Satoshi ・KITAGAWA Toshiyuki

The SUPER-UX operating system of the Supercomputer SX-9 is an enhanced version of the previous SUPER-UX system that has established reliability and achievements with the SX-6/7/8 Series.The SUPER-UX inherits the fundamental features of previous products such as high speed, large scale system compatibility and high reliability but it is also more user-friendly and offers improved operation management of large-scale systems.This paper summarizes the features of the SUPER-UX system and the enhanced advantages of GFS and NQSII.

YOKOYA Yuji ・KUDOH Yoshihiro ・HAYASAKA Takeshi ・Jesper Larsson TRAEFF ・
Hubert RITZDORF ・HAYASHI Yasuharu

The SX-9 provides FORTRAN90/SX and C++/SX, respectively, a Fortran compiler and a C/C++ compiler; both of which feature excellent optimization, vectorization and parallelization functions. HPF/SX V2, (a compiler for HPF (High Performance Fortran), which is thestandard language for distributed parallel processing), and MPI/SX and MPI2/SX, (fully compliant with the distributed parallel processing interfaces MPI-1.3 and MPI-2.1 specifications) are also provided. This paper is intended to introduce the functions and features of the speed-up technology adopted in these programming interfaces for the SX-9.

Papers on Supercomputer SX Series Effects

OGATA Ryusei ・KUBO Yoshiyuki ・TAKEI Toshifumi

The ASLQUAD high-speed quad-precision arithmetic package reduces numerical errors in the traditional double-precision numerical simulations and enables calculations with higher reliability. ASLQUAD also pursues improvement of the user program portability and abundance of functions at the same time as achieving the high-speed operational capability of NEC’s Supercomputer SX Series.This paper summarizes the functions and features of ASLQUAD and explains the usefulness of its high-precision arithmetic operations by taking an eigenvalue calculation as an example.

KOBAYASHI Hiroaki ・EGAWA Ryusuke ・OKABE Kouki ・ITO Eiichi ・OIZUMI Kenji

The Cyberscience Center at Tohoku University is an inter-university cooperative institute that maintains and provides supercomputer systems with high-performance computation capabilities and also conducts R&D on supercomputing and networking to advance the ICT-driven science named Cyberscience. In order to extract the maximum performances of the supercomputers, the center supports the users in tuning their programs and also conducts joint research with users to realize advanced high-performance computing. This paper presents the new supercomputing system SX-9 that was installed in March 2008 and the user-support activities of our center. It also presents the early performance evaluations of the SX-9 system using real scientific application codes.

YOSHIDA Yoshikatsu ・MARUYAMA Koki ・TAKAHARA Hiroshi

This paper provides an outline of the global warming projections made using the atmosphere-ocean coupled model CCSM3. Results show that even if the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is stabilized, the temperature and sea level will continue to rise over the next few hundred years, and that hysteresis effects appear in sea level changes depending on the pathway of the concentration in future. It will become increasingly important that, in our future activities, we fully consider adaptations to climate change in addition to attempting to mitigate the global warming (through emissions reduction).

Special Issue: Home Server and Home Client Solution “Lui”

Explanation of Products

MATSUI Hiroya ・YAMAGA Hiroyuki ・ENOMOTO Koji

NEC Personal Products Ltd. launched their new personal solution products in April, 2008. These were the “Lui SX” home server PC, the “Lui RN” “Lui RP” PC Remoter and the “VALUESTAR R Lui” consumer desktop PC. These products realize new solutions named “Contents on Demand”, “PC on Demand”.

Explanation of Technologies

ISOZUMI Atsunori ・KAMIMURA Tomohiko ・KUROIWA Minoru ・
SAKAMOTO Susumu ・CHIBA Taneaki

NEC Personal Products, Ltd. has developed Home Server PC “Lui SX”, which is a PC incorporating a large-capacity HDD and capable of unified management of digital contents and distribution of them to PCs in a home network or to network (DLNA)-capable TV sets. This paper introduces the technologies supporting the Home Server PC “Lui SX”, including “high-reliability design” for 24-hour stable operation and “Multi Record Casting Technology” for recording/distribution of two digital broadcast programs simultaneously as well as the usability of these technologies.

WATANABE Junya ・SATO Shinobu ・FURUTA Yuji ・MACHIDA Satoshi ・TANNO Hidekazu

NEC Personal Products, Ltd. has developed the “Remote Screen Technology,” which is an implementation of the “PC on Demand” concept for allowing a home PC to be used anytime, anywhere. This paper introduces the architecture and technologies of the Remote Screen Technology.

General Papers

MORIYA Hidenori ・KINOSHITA Manabu ・KATOU Keiichirou ・
EZAKI Masafumi ・NAKADA Yoshiyasu

The “Digital Mobile Telecommunication System for Local Government” is intended to be used for rescue and recovery activities upon occurrence of disasters and to be utilized for transmission of administrative information in ordinary days. This paper reports the development result of this system.

Oleg Neuwirt ・Joao Da Silva ・Daniele Abbadessa ・Florian Winkler

Telecommunication incumbents regard IPTV as a key service differentiator to reduce customer churn and generate new revenue streams. However, as more operators deploy this service, the factors for differentiation are dissolving rapidly. In this paper we present how IPTV can be enriched by integrating telecommunications services. We also show how new collaborative business models can be created by bringing Identity Management in the IPTV domain. Furthermore, we address privacy aspects for IPTV service portfolios - a topic which is crucial to gain user acceptance for new services. This paper also details the architecture of the prototype system deployed and based on IMS.

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