Performance study of GPUs in real-time trigger applications for HEP experiments

Conference · Wed Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 2011

OSTI ID:1038546

Ketchum, W; Amerio, S; Bastieri, D; Bauce, M; Catastini, P; Gelain, S; Hahn, K; Kim, Y K; Liu, T; Lucchesi, D; Urso, G

Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) have evolved into highly parallel, multi-threaded, multicore powerful processors with high memory bandwidth. GPUs are used in a variety of intensive computing applications. The combination of highly parallel architecture and high memory bandwidth makes GPUs a potentially promising technology for effective real-time processing for High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments. However, not much is known of their performance in real-time applications that require low latency, such as the trigger for HEP experiments. We describe an R and D project with the goal to study the performance of GPU technology for possible low latency applications, performing basic operations as well as some more advanced HEP lower-level trigger algorithms (such as fast tracking or jet finding). We present some preliminary results on timing measurements, comparing the performance of a CPU versus a GPU with NVIDIA's CUDA general-purpose parallel computing architecture, carried out at CDF's Level-2 trigger test stand. These studies will provide performance benchmarks for future studies to investigate the potential and limitations of GPUs for real-time applications in HEP experiments.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE Office of Science
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1038546
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-CONF-11-710-PPD
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS
ALGORITHMS
Accelerators
Computing
BENCHMARKS
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
COMPUTER GRAPHICS
HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
PARALLEL PROCESSING
PERFORMANCE
PHYSICS
PROCESSING