1 From 4-bit micros to Multi-cores: A brief history, Future Challenges, and how CEs can prepare for...

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From 4-bit micros to Multi-cores: A brief history, Future Challenges, and how CEs can prepare for them

Ganesh Gopalakrishnan,School of Computing,University of Utah

• NSF CSR-SMA: Toward Reliable and Efficient Message Passing Software Through Formal Analysis (the ``Gauss'' project) • 2005-TJ-1318 (SRC/Intel Customization), Scaling Formal Methods Towards Hierarchical Protocols in Shared Memory Processors (the ``MPV'' project) • Microsoft HPC Innovation Center, ``Formal Analysis and Code Generation Support for MPI''

Microprocessors are everywhere!

“Desktops” turn into supercomputers 8 die x 2 CPUs x 2-way execution = 32-way shared memory machine!

Supercomputers have become fundamentaltools that underlie all of engineering

(BlueGene/L - Image courtesy of IBM / LLNL) (Image courtesy of Steve Parker, CSAFE, Utah)

From Simulation to Flight:Virtual Roll-out of Boeing 787 “Dreamliner”

Entire Airplane beingDesigned and Flown inside a Computer (Simulation Program).

The first plane to fly isthe real one (not a mockup model).

(Photo courtesy of Boeing.)

This Talk Some history

How the micro came about Past predictions

The future Multicores Hardware Challenges Programming them How I am trying to help (my own research)

General awareness International matters Tips to survive, … and to excel

The birth of the micro

Intel’s 4004 and TI’s TMS-1000 were the first 4004 – with cover removed (L) and on (R)

Patent awarded to TI ! Intel made single-chip computer for Datapoint Marketed it as 8008 when Datapoint did not use the

design

Revolution of the 70s and 80s Intel : 4004, 4040, 8008, 8080, 8085, 8086,

80186, 80286, 80386, 80486, Pentium, PPro, … now “X86” (also Itanium)

Motorola: 6800, 6810, 6820, 68000, 68010, 68020, … then PowerPC (collab with IBM)

Other companies Burst of activity – EVERY student wanted to

build an embedded computer out of a micro in the 70s and 80s.

The micro killed the mini

It became amply clear in the 80s that it was going to replace “mainframes” casual experiments conducted between Sun-2 (68020)

versus Digital’s VAX 11/750 and 780

The birth of the IBM PC around 1980 started things going mu-P’s way!

With the masses having a PC each, the Internet could be meaningfully reborn!

… and is in every supercomputer John Hennessy’s prediction during SC’97: (

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/1997/november19/supercomp1119.html

John Hennessy: “Today’s microprocessor chipping away at supercomputer market” Traditionally designed supercomputers will vanish

within a decade – it has! Clusters of them fill vast rooms now!

IBM ASCI White Machine

Released in 2000-- Peak Performance : 12.3 teraflops. -- Processors used : IBM RS6000 SP Power3's - 375 MHz. -- There are 8,192 of these processors -- The total amount of RAM is 6Tb. -- Two hundred cabinets - area of two basket ball courts.

IBM BlueGene/L

The first machine in the family, Blue Gene/L, is expected to operateat a peak performance of about 360 teraflops (360 trillion operations per second), and occupy 64 racks -- taking up only about the same space as half of a tennis court. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) plan to use Blue Gene/L to simulate physical phenomena that require computational capability much greater than presently available, such as cosmology and the behavior of stellar binary pairs, laser-plasma interactions, and the behavior and aging of high explosives.

Now it’s the era of Multi-cores: e.g., Sun Niagara processor 8 CPU cores (80 cores demoed by Intel already…)

Energy advantages of multicores

Putting two simple CPUs achieves 80% performance per cpu with only 50% of the power per CPU chip as a whole gives 1.6x performance for same power PROVIDED we can keep the cores busy

Simple way to keep ‘em busy Virus-checker in background while user computes Photoshop in one and Windows on another

More complex ways to keep multiple cores busy are being investigated

So what are the design issues?Lots! Here is a small subset:

Complex cache coherence protocols !

Silicon debugging is becoming a headache !

Programming apps is becoming hard !

The “Digital Divide”

1. Dual and Quad-cores are the norm these days. Their caches are visibly central

(photo courtesy of

Intel Corporation.)

> 80% of chipsshipped will bemulti-core

What is cache coherence?

Illusion of global shared memory is preferred Need mechanisms to keep caches consistent

Every read must fetch the data written by the latest write

read(a) write(a,1)

… ….

read(a) write(a,2)

read(a,2) write(a,1)

… ….

With a coherent cache, theindicated outcome is not allowed

… ….

But this outcome is allowed

Cache Coherence Protocol VerificationMy “MPV” research project develops techniques to ensure

that cache coherence protocols are correct

We use an approach called Model Checking

We control the complexity of model checking thru the Assume / Guaranteeapproach

dir dir

Chip-level protocols

Inter-cluster protocols

Intra-cluster protocols

mem mem

A caching hierarchy such as this is too hard to verify

L2 Cache+Local Dir

L1 Cach

Global Dir

MainMemory

Home ClusterRemote Cluster 1

Remote Cluster 2

L2 Cache+Local Dir

L1 Cach

L2 Cache+Local Dir

L1 Cach

So we create several “mutually supporting” abstractions

L2 Cache+Local Dir’

Global Dir

MainMemory

Home Cluster

Remote Cluster 1

Remote Cluster 2

L2 Cache+Local Dir

L1 Cach

Abstracted Protocol #2

Global Dir

MainMemory

Home Cluster

Remote Cluster 1

Remote Cluster 2

L2 Cache+Local Dir

L1 Cach

• On-chip instrumentation is one way to “see” what is inside

• One must put in several built-in test circuits

• One must design with the option of bypassing new features

cpu cpu cpu cpu

Invisible“miss” traffic

Visible“miss” traffic

Problem 2: Silicon Debugging: Can’t see “inside” CPUs without paying a huge price

3: Programming Apps is hard! e.g. threadsThread and process interactions need to coordinate

Otherwise something analogous to this will happen !

Teller 1 Teller 2

Read bank balance ($100) Read bank balance ($100)

Add $10 on scratch paper ($110) Subtract $10 on scratch paper ($90)Enter $110 into account Enter $90 into account

USER LEFT WITH $90 – NOT WITH $100 !!

Programming Msg. Passing Supercomputers can be quite trickyMy “Gauss” project (in collaboration with Robert M. Kirby) ensuresthat supercomputer programs do not contain bugs, and also perform efficiently

Virtually all supercomputers are programmed using the “MPI” communication library

Mis-using this library can often result in bugs that show up only after porting

MPI_SEND(to P2, Msg)

MPI_RECV(from P2, Msg)

MPI_SEND(to P1, Msg)

MPI_RECV(from P1, Msg)

If the system does not provide sufficient buffering, the sends may both block, thus causing a deadlock !

Simulation code that does automatic load balancing isdifficult to write and debug

(Photo courtesy NHTSA)

LOTS of hard problems remain open How to provide memory bandwidth?

Put multicore CPU chip on top of highly dense DRAM chip (e.g. 8 GB)

Most users will buy just “one of those” Others will buy SDRAM module add-ons

Slow access for now Optical interconnect is an active research area

Higher memory bandwidth solutions coming So the real challenge remains programming!

Insights from recent Microsoft visit

Emerging Programming Paradigms Microsoft’s Task Pallallel Library Intel’s Thread Building Blocks OpenMP, Cluster OpenMP, Cuda, Cilk Transaction memories Special purpose paradigms

LINQ and PLINQ for Relational Databases Game Programming: roll customized solutions

Emerging Programming Paradigms Transaction Memories!

Users cause too many bugs when programming using locks

Transaction memories allow shared memory threads to “watch” each others read/write actions

Conflicting accesses can rollback and retry

Problem 4: Huge! The “digital divide” Need plenty of Outreach Better CE / CS projects in SLVSEF

Mentoring

Learn from History – Learn Computer History If you want to understand today, you have to

search yesterday. ~Pearl Buck

Things are changing SO fast that basic principles are often being diluted

Get excited by studying computer history and seeing how much better off we are (also be chagrined by all the lost opportunity!)

Where to learn computer history? Computer History Museum, Mountain View

Intel Museum, Santa Clara

Boston Computer Museum

Many in the UK (Manchester, London, …)

Travel widely – be inspired by what you see!

It is important to understand the International Scene Lessons from MSR India

Amazing talent-pool Relatively high availability of talent

Lessons from Intel India Talent-pool still lacks depth and abilities of many

of our CEs We can stay competitive in hardware for a LONG

time to come Apply for international internships!

Gradual loss of manufacturing death Lots of manufacturing happening outside the

US Fear not – CE / CS jobs are still on the rise

Huge demand forecast within the US

THE REAL DANGER Loss of manufacturing kills pride and incentive to

learn – we don’t want that in CE

Recipe for success

The best ideas don’t always work Wait for the world to be ready for the ideas The devil is in the detail Too much established momentum Decide goal (short-term impact vs. long-term)

Quiet tenacity Tenacity without ruffling feathers needlessly Work hard! work smart! learn theory! be a champion

algorithm / program designer! learn advanced hardware design!

Learn to write extremely clearly and precisely! Learn to give inspiring talks! (be inspired first!)

1 From 4-bit micros to Multi-cores: A brief history, Future Challenges, and how CEs can prepare for...

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