Ambric Announces World's First TeraOPS-Class Chip Using GALS Architecture That Enables Massively-Parallel Programming For Complex Embedded Applications.Initial Markets for the Am2000 Chips are Complex, High-performance Video and Image Processing image processing Set of computational techniques for analyzing, enhancing, compressing, and reconstructing images. Its main components are importing, in which an image is captured through scanning or digital photography; analysis and manipulation of the image, accomplished ; Broader DSP (1) (Digital Signal Processor) A special-purpose CPU used for digital signal processing applications (see definition #2 below). It provides ultra-fast instruction sequences, such as shift and add, and multiply and add, which are commonly used in math-intensive and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) A type of gate array that is programmed in the field rather than in a semiconductor fab. Containing up to hundreds of thousands of gates, there are a variety of FPGA architectures on the market. Markets to Follow SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Ambric([R]), Inc. introduced the Am2000[TM]family of scalable integrated circuits (ICs) and will present a paper on the chips in a session here tomorrow. The Am2000 ICs are the world's first teraOPS-class chips using globally asynchronous Refers to events that are not synchronized, or coordinated, in time. The following are considered asynchronous operations. The interval between transmitting A and B is not the same as between B and C. The ability to initiate a transmission at either end. , locally synchronous (GALS) architecture that enables massively-parallel solutions for complex embedded applications. Ambric's new chips feature teraOPS-level performance and an innovative, structural object-programming model that dramatically accelerates embedded application development and debug To correct a problem in hardware or software. Debugging software means locating the errors in the source code (the program logic). Debugging hardware means finding errors in the circuit design (logical circuits) or in the physical interconnections of the circuits. . Initial target markets for the chips are complex, high-performance video and image processing applications, with other applications for the broader, high-end digital signal processing See DSP. Digital Signal Processing - (DSP) Computer manipulation of analog signals (commonly sound or image) which have been converted to digital form (sampled). (DSP) and field-programmable gate array (hardware) field-programmable gate array - (FPGA) A gate array where the logic network can be programmed into the device after its manufacture. An FPGA consists of an array of logic elements, either gates or lookup table RAMs, flip-flops and programmable interconnect wiring. (FPGA) markets to follow. Ambric is a privately-held fabless semiconductor company A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of hardware devices implemented on semiconductor chips. It achieves an advantage by outsourcing the fabrication of the devices to a specialized semiconductor manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry or "fab. headquartered in Beaverton, Ore., with funding from ComVentures, OVP OVP Originalverpackt (German: original packaging) OVP Over Voltage Protection OVP Ostvorpommern (German number plate area code) OVP Originalverpackung (German) Venture Partners, and Northwest Technology Ventures. "The structural object programming model of Ambric's Am2000 chips dramatically speeds development compared with VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) A CPU architecture that reads a group of instructions and executes them at the same time. For example, the group (word) might contain four instructions, and the compiler ensures that those four instructions are not dependent on each assembly coding for DSPs or RTL (Register Transfer Level) A high-level hardware description language (HDL) for defining digital circuits. The circuits are described as a collection of registers, Boolean equations, control logic such as "if-then-else" statements as well as complex event sequences; for FPGAs," said Howard Bubb, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and chairman of Ambric. "And, the GALS architecture enables linear scalability of hardware and software to keep pace with Moore's Law "The number of transistors and resistors on a chip doubles every 18 months." By Intel co-founder Gordon Moore regarding the pace of semiconductor technology. He made this famous comment in 1965 when there were approximately 60 devices on a chip. at 65-nanometer processes and beyond." "I joined Ambric's technical advisory board because reconfigurable computing is the right way to use extremely-large-scale IC technology," said independent consultant Robert Colwell, chief architect of the Intel IA32 Pentium processor and author of the book, Pentium Chronicles: The People, Passion, and Politics Behind Intel's Landmark Chips. "It's reconfigurable fabrics done right: programmability firstCofollowed by processing granularity, memory partitioning, and then distributed interconnect paths. Ambric has banished the von Neumann memory bottleneck, long the bane BANE. This word was formerly used to signify a malefactor. Bract. 1. 2, t. 8, c. 1. of programmers trying to manually juggle multiple control threads. Power dissipation, interconnect bandwidth, complex flow control, and clock gating have been solved. They did it by simultaneously getting several great ideas right. Ambric is not just one generation ahead of other chip companiesCoAmbric is in another league entirely." Highly Programmable Architecture Distinguishes Ambric's Am2000 ICs Practical, efficient programmability is a major differentiator of Ambric's chips. The crucial importance of development ease was highlighted in the recent article, "Ambric Discloses Massively Parallel Architecture", by Berkeley Design Technology, Inc. (BDTI BDTI Berkeley Design Technology, Inc. BDTI Berkeley Design Technology Inc. ), (InsideDSP.com, August 23, 2006). From the article: "While massively parallel processors offer the possibility of dramatic performance gains over traditional architectures, these gains will only be realized if the programming model is user friendly and efficient." The Am2000 ICs are programmable, globally asynchronous, massively parallel, multiple-instruction, multiple-data (MIMD (Multiple Instruction stream Multiple Data stream) A computer that can process two or more independent sets of instructions simultaneously on two or more sets of data. Computers with multiple CPUs or single CPUs with dual cores are examples of MIMD architecture. ) arrays of 32-bit reduced-instruction-set computing (RISC RISC in full Reduced Instruction Set Computing Computer architecture that uses a limited number of instructions. RISC became popular in microprocessors in the 1980s. ) processors and memories in a fabric of asynchronous messaging channels. In developing the Am2000 chip family, Ambric first created its structural object-programming model for massively-parallel computing, and then architected the silicon to create a context-free object programming environment in hardware. The result is chips that deliver extreme performance and are straightforward to program. The Major Benefits of the Am2000 Chips Are Three-fold: 1. Ease of Development: The new structural object programming model builds on existing object programming techniques, resulting in an intuitive parallel programming environment, even for applications with data and control complexity. Ambric's hardware encapsulation (1) In object technology, the creation of self-contained modules that contain both the data and the processing. See object-oriented programming. (2) The transmission of one network protocol within another. of software objects is a fundamental enabler for a practical, highly-usable parallel programming model. This unique model eliminates the complexity and synchronization problems that undermine the scalability of conventional multi-core chip architectures and multi-threaded programming. And, to speed the debug of real-time systems, an independent on-chip network provides debug visibility and transparent, runtime debugger control of each processor and memory. Ambric's development tool suite employs behavioral simulation driven from the structural system model and the individual, single-threaded programs for each processor. Programs are written in a high-level language or a straightforward RISC assembly language. Unlike FPGAs, Ambric chips do not require developers to design with a hardware description language (language) Hardware Description Language - (HDL) A kind of language used for the conceptual design of integrated circuits. Examples are VHDL and Verilog. (HDL (Hardware Description Language) A language used to describe the functions of an electronic circuit for documentation, simulation or logic synthesis (or all three). Although many proprietary HDLs have been developed, Verilog and VHDL are the major standards. ) or at the register-transfer-level (RTL). And, unlike DSPs, there is no need for complex, very-long-instruction-word (VLIW) assembly language. Ambric's Eclipse-based integrated development environment See IDE. integrated development environment - interactive development environment (IDE) includes system-level graphical design tools, object-level compilers, simulation, mapper-router, on-chip debug, and software libraries. 2. High Performance: Extremely high performance and power efficiency are hallmarks of massively-parallel architectures. The Ambric Am2045 delivers up to 1.08 teraOPS with power scaling from 3 watts to 14 watts, depending on the number of processors used and the frequency to which each processor is set. The Am2045 can also fully sustain a throughput of 60 GMACS GMACS Giga Multiply-Accumulate Operations Per Second GMACS Graphical Machine Automation Control System (16-bit with 32-bit result). Compared with published benchmarks from the leading DSP vendor, the throughput of an Am2045 chip is 10 to 25 times higher than the throughput of the vendor's 1 GHz 90-nanometer DSP. 3. Superior Hardware and Software Scalability: The GALS architecture of the Am2000 chip family eliminates long wires that inhibit performance as the technology scales to 65-nanometers and beyond. Ambric processing 'brics' may be added as geometries shrink, linearly increasing performance with each generation. Power and performance continue to scale, as there are no long busses or pipelines to slow the part. As brics are added, the software also scales linearly. New software objects may be mapped into additional brics without affecting the existing software objects. Debug of N objects remains an order-N problem. Ambric Am2000 Chips are Superior to High-performance DSPs and FPGAs Ambric's Am2000 chips are superior in many respects compared with today's top-of-the-line DSPs and FPGAs. Ambric chips: * Provide more than 10X the throughput of high-end DSPs * Replace a board using several DSPs and/or FPGAs with a single, easy-to-program part * Lower the cost of software development * Lower product cost, use less power, and have a smaller footprint than do multiple DSPs and FPGAs * Reduce time-to-market * Enable software scalability and object re-use * Are flexibly field-reconfigurable within milliseconds "Today's advanced video processing is leaving uni-processors in the dust," said Jon Peddie, president, Jon Peddie Research, Inc. "H.264 encoding for high-definition resolution is more difficult by an order-of-magnitude than is MPEG-2 at standard definition. The only way that the processing can be done in real time is to go massively parallel, and Ambric has nailed it. The chip has the brute horsepower and the ease-of-coding to handle the most difficult video processing." Ambric Am2000 Chips Overcome the Challenges of Complex Embedded Computing Ambric's technology targets the top challenges in embedded computing: ever-increasing complexity, the lack of scalability, and inadequate programming techniques and tools, especially as standards and system requirements evolve. "The beauty of Ambric's new chip is its programming model," said Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts. "Ambric has solved the chronic problem of having no practical way to program massively-parallel chips. The new Ambric chips can replace DSPs and FPGAs and deliver higher performance per dollar than either." As David Patterson, a professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. Commonly referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley and Cal , stated, "Processors are the transistors of tomorrow." Professor Patterson led the design and implementation of RISC I, likely the first very-large-scale integration (VLSI VLSI: see integrated circuit. (1) (Very Large Scale Integration) Between 100,000 and one million transistors on a chip. See SSI, MSI, LSI and ULSI. (2) (VLSI Technology, Inc., Tempe, AZ, www.semiconductors. ) reduced instruction set computer (processor) Reduced Instruction Set Computer - (RISC) A processor whose design is based on the rapid execution of a sequence of simple instructions rather than on the provision of a large variety of complex instructions (as in a Complex Instruction Set Computer). and one of the inspirations for Ambric's efficient processor design. Exemplifying this principle, the architecture of the Ambric chips tiles to thousands of processors, and the software library elements are scalable. In addition, the library elements may be re-used without customization or negative effects. This lets the designer add performance through parallel scaling rather than through mere clock scaling. "Ambric's massively-parallel architecture is well suited to the needs of network security," said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group. "To adapt to constantly changing security threats at gigabit speeds, deep-packet inspection must be flexible and fast. Security will be an important application for Ambric's architecture." Software Libraries: High-performance Video and Image Processing The Am2000 chips are general-purpose embedded processors. To assist early-adopter customers in its initial markets, Ambric is developing a set of software libraries for high-performance video and image processing applications. These markets, estimated to reach a combined total of $750 million by 2007, include applications such as broadcast TV infrastructure, video contribution and post-production, and video security. In 2007, Ambric plans to target the broader DSP and FPGA markets. "Video infrastructure is a hot market for high-performance reconfigurable chips," said Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst, In-Stat, Inc. "Ambric's new chip is ideal for advanced applications such as video pre-processing, transcoding, rate-shaping, and other demanding algorithms. From what I've learned about the chip, the image quality, compression, and throughput it produces should be world-class." Pricing and Availability The top-end Am2045 chip features 360 32-bit processors and on-chip, distributed RAM totaling 4.6 Mbits. Am2000 ICs are also available with 280, 192, or 96 processors. Pricing for Ambric Am2000 chips starts at $99 U.S. for the 96-processor version in quantities of 1,000 units. Engineering samples of the Am2000 chips plus developer boards and software development kits will be available in January 2007 to select customers. For more information on the Am2000 family of ICs, contact Ambric at sales@ambric.com. About Ambric, Inc. Ambric is a fabless semiconductor company that has developed the world's first chip that makes massively parallel software programming practical for complex embedded electronics systems. The company's scalable, teraOPS-class chips deliver performance that is more than an order of magnitude A change in quantity or volume as measured by the decimal point. For example, from tens to hundreds is one order of magnitude. Tens to thousands is two orders of magnitude; tens to millions is three orders of magnitude, etc. higher than high-end DSPs and rivals the performance of FPGAs on many applications. Ambric products will help electronics companies accelerate time-to-market for their products while slashing their system development costs. Established in 2003 and headquartered in Beaverton, Ore., Ambric has received funding from ComVentures, OVP Venture Partners, Northwest Technology Ventures, and private investors. Visit http://www.ambric.com for the latest news and information on the company. Ambric, the Ambric logo, and Am2XXX are trademarks of Ambric, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. More on Moore's Law: http://www.intel.com/technology/silicon/mooreslaw/ http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/Terms/mooreslaw.html http://www.answers.com/topic/moore-s-law |
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