ManyIntegratedCores
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Intel christens its 'Many Integrated Core' products Xeon Phi, eyes exascale milestone
Been wondering when the next big leap in high performance computing would hit? Well, Intel would like you to believe the time is now and the name of that revolution is the Xeon Phi. Formerly codenamed Knights Corner, the Many Integrated Core product is pushing the field of supercomputers into the era of the exaflop by squeezing a teraflop of performance into a package small enough to plug into a PCIe slot. The Phi brand will, at first at least, be applied to specialized coprocessors designed for highly parallel tasks. The chips are built using Intel's 22nm manufacturing process and 3-D TriGate transistors, piling in more that 50 cores in an effort to combat the inroads made by GPU companies like NVIDIA in the supercomputing space. For more info check out the presentation (PDF) and blog post at the source links.
T-Platforms to build ten petaflop supercomputer for Moscow State University
In post-Soviet Russia, massive supercomputer programs you. (Sorry, we had to.) Recently, Russia's Moscow State University contracted with high-performance computing company T-Platforms to create a ten petaflop cluster that'll be operational in 2013. The computer would fall just short of the fastest supercomputer on Earth (the Japanese K Computer, which is rated at 10.51 petaflops) and will incorporate a mixture of different node types to achieve the ten petaflops. T-Platforms will reportedly build the nodes from Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Xeon processors and NVIDIA's next-generation Kepler GPU coprocessors, and Intel's Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture could also be included if it's available during construction. The reason for the project? Unknown officially, but we're guessing it's just another reason for Putin to rip his shirt off and celebrate.
Intel learns from Dr. Dre, wants Atom chips in NFL helmets to know when heads are ringing
We always understood that Intel looked after the rock stars of tomorrow, but who knew that included football players? Yup, according to PC World, Intel is currently investigating adding Atom chips inside NFL helmets to provide real-time impact data to medical staff on the sidelines. While there's no explicit time frame set for this project, we're thinking the sooner the better -- lest we forget it took the league until 2009 to require players who display signs of a concussion to stop playing for at least one day. This isn't the first time though that the world's largest chip maker has actually helped make the gridiron safer. In fact, it previously worked with helmet maker Riddell's fittingly named HITS (Head Impact Telemetry System) and academic researchers to run head injury simulations using linked Xeon-powered computers. Off the field, Intel is also currently partnering with the Mayo Clinic to boost medical cranial scans using MIC (Many Integrated Core) supercomputer co-processors. Codenamed Knights Corner, this hardware puts teacher's pets to shame by running trillions of calculations per second, and apparently accelerates head scans by up to 18 times. Sure, safety's all well and good, but we know Intel's really just curious about how Moore's Law holds up to the shoulder pressure of NFL d-backs.
