Blog

As we head into 2015, we wanted to take a look back at the significant RapidIO.org related events of 2014.  As you’ll see, the RapidIO.org community was very active with several key initiatives underway as well as several new members joining the community.

Here are 3 key highlights from the year (a full listing of all the 2014 activity follows the 3 highlights):

• RapidIO is being used in HPC analytics with the production release of the HP Moonshot Proliant m800 cartridge which leverages TI’s ARM based Keystone II DSPs clustered over a RapidIO 2D torus unified fabric.  PayPal is using this platform for real time analytics processing. RapidIO based Analytics at PayPal

• Through the strong commitment of our Technical Working Group contributors, the RapidIO 10xN 3.1 Specification was released last October bringing additional High Availability and Fault Tolerant extensions to the current RapidIO specification in order to address critical system performance needs of Military and Aerospace applications and support the Next Generation Space Interconnect Standard (NGSIS) RapidIO.org releases revision 3.1 of the RapidIO 10xN Specification Stack

• At the Linley Processor Conference in October, RapidIO.org announced the formation of new task group with the mandate to develop an open specification for multi-node / core coherent scale out of 64-bit ARM processors using RapidIO as a coherent unified fabric.  The formation of this task group saw AMD and ARM join the RapidIO.org community to contribute to this effort.  RapidIO.org announces ARM 64-bit Coherent Scale Out Task Group to Specify RapidIO as a Unified Coherent Fabric for Data Center Analytics and High Performance Computing

New RapidIO.org Members for 2014

            

RapidIO.org Activity for 2014

• Feb 1 Prodrive Technologies announces its Datacenter – HPC system (DCCP-280) with RapidIO & 10 Gigabit Ethernet – Prodrive Technologies announces its datacenter mother board solution, based on industry standards. It provides high throughput, low latency, scalability and flexibility. Ideal for data center operators, supercomputing centers and financial trading organizations.

• Feb 3 RapidIO.org Demonstrates Data Center Compute & Networking Multi-Vendor Reference Design – Task group develops Phase I of RapidIO based open reference designs for use in organizations such as the Open Compute Project, Scorpio, Financial data centers, supercomputers and compute data center applications.

• Feb 6-7 RapidIO.org at Linley Tech Data Center Conference 2014 – RapidIO.org attended the Linley Tech Data Center Conference focusing on the latency, power reduction benefits and scalability of RapidIO interconnect for the Server and Data Center markets. RapidIO.org’s exhibit featured multi-vendor server market solutions, including those from Prodrive, Freescale, TI, Praesum, Xilinx, and IDT.

• Apr 30 Curtiss-Wright Now Shipping Industry’s First 6U FPGA Card with Trio of Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGAs –  Curtiss-Wright Corporation Defense Solutions division has begun shipping early access units of the recently introduced CHAMP-FX4 module, believed to be the industry’s highest performing COTS 6U FPGA engine, to customers in the aerospace and defense industry. The rugged, high-performance OpenVPX™ (VITA 65) board, the industry’s first COTS 6U FPGA engine to feature triple on-board Xilinx® Virtex®-7 devices in a single chassis slot, is scheduled for full L0 production in Q2 2014.

• Jun 22-26 RapidIO.org Demonstrates Low Latency Energy Efficient Supercomputing Platforms at ISC Leipzig – Member companies showcase heterogeneous computing systems for Supercomputing market by leveraging RapidIO specifications for Data Center Compute and Networking systems.

• Jun 22-26 Prodrive Technologies attends ISC’14 in Leipzig – Prodrive Technologies, IDT and RapidIO.org showcase the ARM + DSP based HPC platform with low latency high bandwidth RapidIO interconnect technology.

• Jun 23 4th Generation Intel® Core™ based Advanced Mezzanine Card with RapidIO® – Concurrent Technologies has released an Advanced Mezzanine Card (AdvancedMC™) module featuring either a dual or quad-core 4th Generation Intel® Core™ processor combined with IDT’s Tsi721 PCIe to RapidIO® bridge to deliver a low latency and scalable compute element.

• Jul 8 IDT and eSilicon to Collaborate on Next-Generation RapidIO Switches – IDT and eSilicon Corporation announces a collaboration to expedite development of next-generation RapidIO® switches to meet the growing performance demands of new system architectures for wireless, embedded and computing infrastructures.

• Jul 15 CommAgility’s new AMC provides high-performance Virtex-7 FPGA – Based around a high-density Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA, the new module is ideal for LTE wireless front-end systems requiring multiple 10G CPRI links at up to rate option 8, as well as a range of other high-performance FPGA applications.

• Aug 26 IIT Madras Open Source Processor Project – The SHAKTI processor project aims to build 6 processor variants (see below) based on the RISC-V ISA from UC Berkeley. The project will develop a complete reference SoC for each family which will serve as an exemplar for that category of processor.

• Aug 27 IDT to Showcase DDR4, RapidIO, Power and Signal Integrity Technologies at Intel Developer Forum 2014 – IDT showcased its leading DDR4 memory interface technology and other key products at the Intel Developer Forum 2014 in San Francisco. The IDT demos showcased how the company’s products are being used to enable complete ecosystems for next-generation server systems.

• Oct 7 RapidIO based Analytics at PayPal – HP Leverages Texas Instruments ARM based DSPs over a RapidIO 2D Torus Unified Fabric to meet Performance Critical Analytics needs at PayPal.

• Oct 13 RapidIO.org releases revision 3.1 of the RapidIO Specification Stack – RapidIO.org releases the RapidIO 3.1 Specification bringing additional High Availability and Fault Tolerant extensions to the current RapidIO specification to address critical system performance needs of Military and Aerospace applications.

• Oct 21 RapidIO.org announces ARM 64-bit Coherent Scale Out Task Group to Specify RapidIO as a Unified Coherent Fabric for Data Center Analytics and High Performance Computing – AMD and ARM have joined the RapidIO.org community to collaborate with RapidIO.org member companies in the development of an open specification for multi-node / core coherent scale out of 64-bit ARM® processors using RapidIO as a coherent unified fabric.

• Nov 11-13 Open Server Summit 2014 RapidIO.org was an exhibitor at this event and Rick O’Connor, Executive Director of RapidIO.org was a speaker at this event on Thursday, November 13 10:00-11:00 am (session C-202). Rick’s topic was: Scalable RapidIO Based Server Clusters.

• Nov 16-21 Super Computing 2014 RapidIO.org was an exhibitor at Super Computing 2014 in New Orleans and Rick O’Connor, Executive Director of RapidIO.org was a speaker at this event on Tuesday, November 18 1:30-2:00 pm (Room 291). Rick’s topic was: Performance Critical Data Center Analytics with 20 Gbps RapidIO Interconnect.

• Nov 18 IDT, Orange Silicon Valley, NVIDIA Accelerate Computing Breakthrough with RapidIO-based Clusters Ideal for Gaming, Analytics – IDT announces the development of a groundbreaking compute architecture designed to handle the immense data demands of online gaming, high-performance computing and analytics through high-density, low-latency clusters of connected mobile processors. In conjunction with Orange Silicon Valley, the semiconductor company co-developed a massive highly scalable, low-latency cluster of low-power NVIDIA® Tegra® K1 mobile processors, using IDT’s RapidIO®  interconnect technology to connect multiple nodes at up to 16 Gbps.

• Sep 5 IDT RapidIO Interconnect Enables Orange’s Successful Social Media Analytics Project – Orange Silicon Valley used IDT’s scalable x86 compute cluster and 20 Gbps RapidIO interconnect switches and bridges as the processing platform to execute high-performance analytics on real-world social media traffic during the FIFA World Cup finals.

• Nov 6 Mirabilis Design announces VisualSim RapidIO Modeling Library: A system-level model of the RapidIO 10xN standard for rapid architecture exploration of computing, defense and networking systems – VisualSim Architect is used extensively in many applications to architect systems, semiconductors and embedded software. Combining this RapidIO modeling library with the VisualSim modeling infrastructure, architects can explore the application of RapidIO fabrics in their current and future systems, test the feasibility of protocol extensions, and compute the latency and throughput across the full system containing the RapidIO interface.

• Dec 9 IDT Launches RapidIO 40-100 Gbps Interface Portfolio, Reducing Latency and Boosting Bandwidth for Communications and Computing – IDT announces the launch of a RapidIO®40-100 Gbps interface product portfolio, developed to lower latency while improving bandwidth for high-performance computing (HPC), wireless, analytics and embedded applications. For the first in a series of products planned, IDT is introducing a 40 Gbps RapidIO 10xN IP core for ASIC, CPU, processor, DSP, GPU and FPGA partners and end customers, supporting silicon solutions with process technology nodes from 45 down to 16 nanometers.

• Dec 17 Mobiveil Announces Fully Compliant RapidIO 10xN (Gen 3) Digital Controller IP Supporting Multi-Channel DMA, Data Message and Data Streaming at 40Gbps Mobiveil, announces a fully compliant RapidIO 10xN (Gen 3) Digital controller IP supporting multi-channel DMA, data message and data streaming at 40Gbps. Besides supporting ASIC and standard cell design flows for designers building wireless network infrastructure and aerospace solutions, where RapidIO has long been the interface of choice, Mobiveil will be targeting ARM® based server and heterogeneous compute (HPC) platforms with this release.

Thank you to all of our members for your continued support and we are looking forward to a successful 2015! Also, don’t forget to connect with us on Social Media for even more RapidIO.org related news, events and information.

Cheers,

Rick