Re: GA144 article

From	Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: GA144 article
References	(3 earlier) <f36c6ee2-bfce-49fa-a200-c30391401e80@googlegroups.com> <7x394es208.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <ccbfde62-40d5-4e0f-861c-38a6220bb9d3@googlegroups.com> <7xzk6kki1a.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <e3a75b45-eab4-4b69-83d1-1adb56323e89@googlegroups.com>
Date	2012-07-28 23:03 -0700
Message-ID	<7xtxwr5cjp.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> (permalink)
Organization	Nightsong/Fort GNOX

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rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> writes:
> No, no FPGA I know of would allow you to use even 5% of the routing
> resources.  That is the point.

If you're using 5% of the routing and 10% of the LUT's, why did you
buy a $1500 FPGA instead of a $100 one?  What did the extra $1400 get you?

> Worry not if you can use all the resources, worry if your design will
> fit.  It's that simple.

That's the thing, if you're hoping to use a $100 FPGA but your
application won't fit, then maybe you have to use a $200 one with 2x
more CLB's.  And if it still won't fit, there's the $300 one, the $400
one, etc.  Once you hit the very biggest ones, there's still stuff that
won't fit, so you wish there were some that were even bigger, or you
wait for next year's models, etc.  It's the same with ram, hard drives,
parallel GPU units, or whatever.

By comparison it's hard to think of any applications that won't fit a
GA144, but that would fit in an imagined GA288 with 2x the nodes.  The
GA144 itself is already hard to fill, as we're finding.

>> Can I use a 144 core x86?  Yes.  What about 144,000 cores?  144
>> million?  Yes and yes.
>
> They can't even keep 4 x86 CPUs supplied with data from memory so I
> have no idea what you would do with 144 of them on a single chip.

They are making a 50+ core x86 (Knights Corner) but I was thinking more
along the lines of x86 multi-chip supercomputers with 1000's of cores.
Yes those exist and there's lots of applications for them.

> If you think the number 144 is where the magic comes from then you
> don't get the GA144.  How about a GA32?  Only 32 processors to occupy
> with all the same IO.  Does that make you any more satisfied with the
> GA32?

The GA32 makes more sense than the GA144, since it has more connectivity
and more i/o per core, so in that sense is better balanced, plus it's
smaller and therefore presumably costs less.  The GA144 is a fairly
large chip, probably larger than an ARM M3 or the like.  Of course
I can understand why GA might have come out with the flagship product
first, to make the biggest impression.  But I think the GA144 would
be better with somewhat different parameter choices.

> Why would you use RAM in a node that is not next to the node using the RAM?  

Because there's not enough connectivity between nodes to put the ram
immediately adjacent, a lot of the time.  As a trivial example, say your
algorithm needs 512 words of ram, or 8 nodes used as ram.  The 8 nodes
are no big deal, but the processing node has just 4 interconnects, so
you need a bunch of extra nodes and delays to move the data around.

Routing in an FPGA as I understand it is just wires and some gate
delays, but if you want to route stuff between GA144 nodes, it takes
software in the nodes to copy the data around, inserting significant
delays at each copying step compared to just routing with wires.

Maybe we could think of the GA144 as something like an FPGA with not
enough routing.

> So far the only thing that has tickled my imagination for this chip
> (other than software defined radios, SDR) is a single chip
> oscilloscope.

SDR is a really cool idea and it will be great if you can use a GA144
for that.

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GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-18 03:48 -0700
  Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-19 10:51 -0700
    Re: GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-20 01:30 -0700
      Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-20 01:48 -0700
        Re: GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-20 03:25 -0700
        Re: GA144 article Syd Rumpo <usenet@neonica.co.uk> - 2012-07-20 11:59 +0100
      Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-22 18:59 -0700
        Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-22 19:16 -0700
          Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-22 19:31 -0700
            Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-22 20:08 -0700
              Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-23 16:24 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-23 22:33 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-24 14:04 -0700
            Re: GA144 article vandys@vsta.org - 2012-07-23 03:34 +0000
            Re: GA144 article Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-23 14:11 +0200
              Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-23 16:47 -0700
              Re: GA144 article "Clyde W. Phillips Jr." <cwpjr02@gmail.com> - 2012-07-24 20:11 -0700
          Re: GA144 article Richard Owlett <rowlett@pcnetinc.com> - 2012-07-23 02:04 -0500
  Re: GA144 article Daniel Kalny <dkalny@seznam.cz> - 2012-07-24 02:37 -0700
    Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-24 03:12 -0700
      Re: GA144 article stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2012-07-24 10:36 +0000
        Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-24 10:28 -0700
          Re: GA144 article Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-07-24 22:12 +0000
      Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-24 14:49 -0700
        Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-26 13:25 -0700
          Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-27 13:17 -0700
            Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-27 14:31 -0700
              Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-27 22:02 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-28 23:03 -0700
                Re: GA144 article marko <marko@marko.marko> - 2012-07-30 09:12 +1000
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 01:09 -0700
                Re: GA144 article marko <marko@marko.marko> - 2012-08-01 00:19 +1000
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 09:59 -0700
                Re: GA144 article marko <marko@marko.marko> - 2012-08-01 10:13 +1000
                Re: GA144 article Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-01 00:59 +0200
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 16:54 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Luca Saiu <positron@gnu.org> - 2012-08-04 10:46 +0200
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-05 11:04 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Luca Saiu <positron@gnu.org> - 2012-08-06 02:02 +0200
                Re: GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-06 02:16 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-30 08:23 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-30 21:33 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 01:51 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-31 11:48 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-07-31 14:54 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-31 16:09 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-01 12:57 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-01 14:16 -0700
                Re: GA144 article vandys@vsta.org - 2012-08-01 22:32 +0000
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-01 16:03 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-01 16:13 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-01 16:10 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-01 22:18 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-02 11:47 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-02 14:32 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-02 16:01 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-02 16:38 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-03 08:40 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-03 09:19 -0700
                Re: GA144 article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-08-03 11:15 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-05 15:50 -0700
                Re: GA144 article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-06 02:21 -0700

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