AMD's Big HPC Swing: Exascale Heterogeneous Processor [Updated]

[patrickjp93]

http://www.hpcwire.com/2015/07/29/amds-exascale-strategy-hinges-on-heterogeneity/

 

 

Specs:

7nm production node

32 CPU cores (architecture and clocks are unknown)

32GB of onboard memory (HBM 2.0 or HMC 2.0 not confirmed)

XXXX Stream Processors (Greenland GPU architecture is known, clocks and SP count unknown)

 

The CPU cores, the GPU, and the HBM will all be brought together on a large 2,5D interposer, implying that the components could be made in various places around the world, a combination of TSMC, GloFo, Hynix's factories, and an assembly plant.

 

According to the article, AMD claims that it will be possible to build a supercomputer of 1 Exaflop with 100,000 nodes based on this new Exascale Heterogeneous Processor, meaning each node must provide 10 Teraflops of compute power. Scheduled release time is the 2016-2017 time frame. I'm betting more on 2017 due to HBM 2.0 availability, TSMC's usual shenanigans, and other factors.

 

Whether this means each node has 4 or 8 of these is also yet unclear, and it doesn't take coprocessors into account. 2017 should be a very interesting year for HPC engineers indeed.

 

It's difficult to speculate for this chip particularly because we don't know the CPU architecture. Zen is yet to be confirmed for AVX 512 capability which can significantly tip the scales by up to a teraflop or more depending on clock speeds with this core count. With the update, this could even be AVX 1024 if plans for such a vector extension are in the works.

 

And before anyone asks, experts currently estimate the price per chip to be around $8000.

 

Update: after reading through the white paper (if you don't have a membership with IEEE, sorry, I can't publish it), it turns out the target timeframe for this has been confused with the HPC APU Fudzilla and others did articles on almost 4-5 months ago. The actual release timeframe for this is closer to 2020, as it's based on a 7nm node for construction, meaning we also cannot conclude the cache is HBM 2.0. In fact given the number of dies, I'd suspect it's HMC 2.0, as the 1.0 spec is 2GB per stack, and Intel's Knight's Landing has 8 stacks with a total memory of 16GB. HBM 2.0 can have 32GB in just 4 stacks, at the cost of having 8 chips in a single stack, much more difficult to keep cool than 4 stacks as shown in the block diagram. Though surprisingly the Greenland GPU platform is consistent, meaning AMD may intend to keep GCN 1.3/2.0 around a long, long time. It also m4eans the cores cannot be Puma+, K12, or Zen+, as the successors to all of these will be out by 2018/2019.

 

Update 2: It's meant to be a platform-agnostic design, meaning compatibility with both ARM and x86, possibly also PowerPC if AMD wants to join the Open Power Alliance (this last one is total speculation). This gives further credence to the idea this will have to be made using multiple dies and attached to an interposer. The CPU and GPU pieces will most likely not be made in 1 die.

[flibberdipper]

This is neat and all...

 

BUT I WANT MY FUCKING AMD FX II

[patrickjp93]

This is neat and all...

-snip-

You'll get it in mid to late 2016 at the earliest.

[Notional]

Damn AMD going all in on ZEN APU's. I wonder if this means AMD will build America's new EXA scale computer, Obama talked about.

 

If AMD gets priority access to HBM2 for both ZEN, Greenland discrete, and maybe a super computer; I wonder if there's anything left for nvidia? SK Hynix has ramped up the production, so this super computer should not be impossible to make.

 

As for TSMC, I think it's clear that this is going to be GloFo, so TSMC has nothing to do with any of this. It really comes down to SK Hynix production supply.

[Deletive]

8000$ a chip... thats a good deal. 32gb's of cache? Thats insane.

[Delusional Phil]

This is for servers right ? Hence the ludicrious price point ... 

 

This article gives me hope that AMD's future is bright and not dark as it seems . Could be false hope ...

[patrickjp93]

Damn AMD going all in on ZEN APU's. I wonder if this means AMD will build America's new EXA scale computer, Obama talked about.

 

If AMD gets priority access to HBM2 for both ZEN, Greenland discrete, and maybe a super computer; I wonder if there's anything left for nvidia? SK Hynix has ramped up the production, so this super computer should not be impossible to make.

 

As for TSMC, I think it's clear that this is going to be GloFo, so TSMC has nothing to do with any of this. It really comes down to SK Hynix production supply.

The other JEDEC members can make HBM 2, especially Micron since it has more experience building 3D stacked RAM than Hynix anyway with the Hybrid Memory Cube that's been shipping and deployed in Oracle's systems since mid 2013.

 

Also, the GPU dies and CPU dies will be made separately. Greenland will likely be made at TSMC like most other dGPUs. It all sits on an interposer.

[Eroda]

This is neat and all...

 

snip

 

 

I hope amd Drops the FX name For zen its tarnished, bring back phenom or just use letter designation just like the APU lineup  simply like Z4/Z8 so 3.5Ghz 8 core zen APU with unlocked multiplier is Z8 135K or something similar. think about it  if they are good people will be saying have you seen those new AMD Z8's they are awesome then they can bring back Black/FX   with some balls to the walls stuff like 12 Core etc up in the elite region

[Deletive]

This is for servers right ? Hence the ludicrious price point ... 

 

This article gives me hope that AMD's future is bright and not dark as it seems . Could be false hope ...

Yep, probably the bigger servers, that that price point is gold, Skylakes 24 core probably would cost that much let alone a GPU, 32gb's of HBM cache and a ton of cores thrown on an interposer. If AMD can prove themselves with this they can put themselves in a spot Cisco did awhile back when they entered the Blade server space. (except with Processor space)

[flibberdipper]

I hope amd Drops the FX name For zen its tarnished, bring back phenom or just use letter designation just like the APU lineup  simply like Z4/Z8 so 3.5Ghz 8 core zen APU with unlocked multiplier is Z8 135K or something similar. think about it  if they are good people will be saying have you seen those new AMD Z8's they are awesome then they can bring back Black/FX   with some balls to the walls stuff like 12 Core etc up in the elite region

I want FX II. Because literally the only thing that hasn't had a II designation is the Sempron.

[patrickjp93]

Yep, probably the bigger servers, that that price point is gold, Skylakes 24 core probably would cost that much let alone a GPU, 32gb's of HBM cache and a ton of cores thrown on an interposer. If AMD can prove themselves with this they can put themselves in a spot Cisco did awhile back when they entered the Blade server space. (except with Processor space)

Skylake's going up to 28 cores, and it's coming with custom variants for large clients, like a supercomputer or Microsoft, amazon, facebook, etc.. Intel could pull out all the same stops. 2016 and 2017 will be very, very interesting.

[Notional]

The other JEDEC members can make HBM 2, especially Micron since it has more experience building 3D stacked RAM than Hynix anyway with the Hybrid Memory Cube that's been shipping and deployed in Oracle's systems since mid 2013.

 

Also, the GPU dies and CPU dies will be made separately. Greenland will likely be made at TSMC like most other dGPUs. It all sits on an interposer.

 

Just because it's a JEDEC, does not mean everyone has the competence to actually manufacture it. Afaik Micron as all in on HMC, so I doubt they will start making HBM. They haven't made any public statements that they will make HBM anyways.

 

Based on the die, I highly doubt they will make 3 dies (2x CPU and 1x GPU). That would make no sense. The picture you posted is an APU, and AMD's APU's are single dies, so it would make little sense for this not to be. It looks like GloFo will be making both A-, C- and GPU's for AMD now, but that is yet to be determined of course.

[Commander Llama]

$800M for a 1 ExaFLOPS computer eh? Plus another couple hundred mil for the cooling solution probs. Then there's that electricity bill....

 

Worth it!

[patrickjp93]

Just because it's a JEDEC, does not mean everyone has the competence to actually manufacture it. Afaik Micron as all in on HMC, so I doubt they will start making HBM. They haven't made any public statements that they will make HBM anyways.

 

Based on the die, I highly doubt they will make 3 dies (2x CPU and 1x GPU). That would make no sense. The picture you posted is an APU, and AMD's APU's are single dies, so it would make little sense for this not to be. It looks like GloFo will be making both A-, C- and GPU's for AMD now, but that is yet to be determined of course.

AMD has already stated their largest dedicated CPU will only have 32 cores. If you think that's going to fit in with a huge GPU (it's definitely 2048+ SPs) and 8 stacks of HBM 2.0, you're nuts; it's going to be manufactured piecemeal. The die is too big to do all at once and have good yields.

 

Micron's pissed after the stunt Hynix pulled buying the votes to keep HMC out of the JEDEC standard. I'm sure it would be happy to jump in and make HBM better and snub Hynix at the same time to steal the customers.

[Deletive]

$800M for a 1 ExaFLOPS computer eh? Plus another couple hundred mil for the cooling solution probs. Then there's that electricity bill....

 

Worth it!

800 for just 100,000 nodes, plus ECC registered RAM for each, motherboards, fault tolerance (redunant power supplies and such), Back up generators, Power straight from the grid and the infrastructure needed for that to be functional. I would say 1.5/2 billion dollars.

[dalekphalm]

Anyone else find the announcement of this so shortly after the announcement of the US Gov't investing into an Exascale Supercomputer?

 

Coincidence? I think not.

 

I doubt it's guaranteed, but I have no doubt that AMD is pursuing the contract on that order heavily. They would just love to beat Intel to the contract for supplying that big of a project.

[Notional]

AMD has already stated their largest dedicated CPU will only have 32 cores. If you think that's going to fit in with a huge GPU (it's definitely 2048+ SPs) and 8 stacks of HBM 2.0, you're nuts; it's going to be manufactured piecemeal. The die is too big to do all at once and have good yields.

 

Micron's pissed after the stunt Hynix pulled buying the votes to keep HMC out of the JEDEC standard. I'm sure it would be happy to jump in and make HBM better and snub Hynix at the same time to steal the customers.

 

It's not impossible for that to be the case of course. But that would make it a HUGE package (no giggety intended). It would make it a beast of a processor though. Then again, with built in ram, we might see a completely different type of motherboard and server setup. Very interesting.

 

Still we have no indication what so ever, that that is the case. Especially since Microns primary customer atm. is Intel, that is focused on HMC. It might be a very good thing or NVidia to get supply from Micron though.

[Notional]

Anyone else find the announcement of this so shortly after the announcement of the US Gov't investing into an Exascale Supercomputer?

 

Coincidence? I think not.

 

I doubt it's guaranteed, but I have no doubt that AMD is pursuing the contract on that order heavily. They would just love to beat Intel to the contract for supplying that big of a project.

 

Indeed. Either it's a done deal, or AMD being right on that like a fat kid on a twinkie.

[patrickjp93]

It's not impossible for that to be the case of course. But that would make it a HUGE package (no giggety intended). It would make it a beast of a processor though. Then again, with built in ram, we might see a completely different type of motherboard and server setup. Very interesting.

 

Still we have no indication what so ever, that that is the case. Especially since Microns primary customer atm. is Intel, that is focused on HMC. It might be a very good thing or NVidia to get supply from Micron though.

Intel's creating a new socket as well for their Knight's Landing CPU packages (those not used for the PCIe accelerators), and it may or may not share functionality with the new uppermost Xeon tier for Skylake.

 

Intel's building most of the HMC it's using. Micron's main customer is Oracle for the time being.

[Briggsy]

Hopefully this will have some or a lot of success. The Exascale Directive from Obama is just the kick in the pants the processor industry needs.

[patrickjp93]

Anyone else find the announcement of this so shortly after the announcement of the US Gov't investing into an Exascale Supercomputer?

 

Coincidence? I think not.

 

I doubt it's guaranteed, but I have no doubt that AMD is pursuing the contract on that order heavily. They would just love to beat Intel to the contract for supplying that big of a project.

There are slightly older articles about the chip, from a couple days before the executive order was made and signed. I wouldn't be surprised either way, but if AMD lands such a huge contract, it could literally save them from total liquidation.

[dalekphalm]

There are slightly order articles about the chip, from a couple days before the executive order was made and signed. I wouldn't be surprised either way, but if AMD lands such a huge contract, it could literally save them from total liquidation.

Everyone thought the Console deals were the big saviour of AMD - and surely, at that time they were - but that's going to be nothing compared to the profit AMD is likely to make if they can secure this.

 

AMD surely does make a profit on every APU sold to the console manufacturers, but it's really not that much. However, at the top-of-the-top end, they'll be able to add in much higher margins.

[patrickjp93]

Post Updated. Sorry guys, bad news.

[SurvivorNVL]

So, given the update and all - this is likely not the savior moment for AMD :c

[dalekphalm]

So, given the update and all - this is likely not the savior moment for AMD :c

One can hope and dream

 

Never the less, if AMD stays alive to their expected release date, it could be a huge contender.