Vendors know the
wisdom of publishing a product roadmap. Users want to know the planned future
of the products that they might invest in. They also want insight into how the vendor sees the product evolving.
of the products that they might invest in. They also want insight into how the vendor sees the product evolving.
So, IBM has reason
to present the POWER architecture’s future to potential customers and partners.
Having successfully persuaded many companies to sign up for OpenPOWER systems
IBM must address questions concerning the future of the product’s architecture.
IBM laid out its architectural strategy along with some specifics on its
future. We discuss key takeaways from that presentation.
NVLink
will be available in systems later this year and be carried forward in
future systems. Notice that NVLink and CAPI are both specialized
technologies for boosting certain kinds of performance. Combined with
various architectural changes, they compensate for the rundown of Moore’s
Law. Expect to see more such technologies in the future.
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The current POWER8
system architecture is based on a 22 nm chip with 12 cores. Announced in 2014,
IBM plans to continue with that base until mid-2017. The major enhancement to
current version is the addition of NVIDIA NVLink. This acts as an extremely
high –speed interconnect link between the chip and an NVIDIA GPU. The link delivers 80 GB per second in each
direction. This is 5 to 12 times faster than today’s fastest available link. The NVIDIA GPU accelerates floating point
operations and other numerically intensive operations that are common in
cognitive computing, analytics, and high performance computing.
Featuring
partner-developed microprocessors in a roadmap is unique to IBM. It
dramatically underscores the vitality of OpenPOWER activities. To our
knowledge, no other hardware vendor has achieved anything like this!
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In mid-2017, IBM
will begin rolling out Power9, a 14 nm chip versus today’s 22 nm Power8. IBM will
first introduce a 24 core scale-out system. This will be followed sometime
later with scale-up versions. There was no statement on the number of cores in
scale up systems. The POWER9 systems will feature a new micro-architecture built
around 24 newly redesigned cores and including a number of high-speed cache and
memory interconnects including DDR4 direct attach memory channels, PCIe gen4
and custom accelerators from IBM and its partners.
In
the time period between 2018 and 2019 IBM expects its partners to announce chip
offerings based on IP from both Power8 and Power9, based on 10 to 7 nm technology. Partners will be targeting offerings to their own specialized
market segments.
While
IBM avoided any claims, we expect these systems’ shrinking chip technology will
have some dramatic effects (upward) on demand. It’s also clear the partners
expect to gain significant competitive and business advantages from their
efforts.
Power10,
expected sometime after 2020, is the next large step into the future. IBM
provided no details on features or performance. Typical for a product at least
4 years away.
IBM will offer two Power9 families.
Initially the focus will be scale-out systems with a maximum of 24 cores.
Later, scale-up systems will be added, presumably with a larger number of
cores. They will share a common architecture.
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This
road map shows that IBM along with other members of the OpenPOWER Foundation
are developing Power at an increasing rate. Remember, IBM’s POWER group faces a
number of unique and new challenges. No other major vendor has ever attempted
to develop new hardware in collaboration with numerous partners ala the
OpenPOWER Foundation.
Also,
since selling its chip production facilities to Global Foundries, IBM’s POWER
people must negotiate with an outside company. We believe that IBM’s POWER team
are doing an exceptional job in coping with these difficulties. If they deliver
on the items in this road map, the architecture should remain competitive.
Chips developed by other companies provide both a roadmap highlight and
effectively demonstrate Power Foundation’s strength.
Here
is our simplified version of the road-map (with acknowledgement to IBM):
Today 2H 2016 2017 TBD 2018-2019 2020+
Power8
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Power8
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Power9
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Power9
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Power8/9
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Power10
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12 cores
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12 cores
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24 cores
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? cores
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CAPI
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NVLINK + CAPI
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Scale out
New Arch
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Scale up
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Partner developed.
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22 nm
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22 nm
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14 nm
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14 nm
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10-7 nm
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