ANL/Star project: a new architecture for large scale theoretical physics computations
The project reported consists of two phases, each of which has goals of substantial physics content on its own. In Phase 1, we have selected Star Technologies' ST-100 as the array processor for the prototype coupled system and have installed one on a Vax 11/750 host. Our goals with this system are to institute a substantial program in computational physics at Argonne based on the power provided by this system and thereby to gain experience with both the hardware and software architecture of the ST-100. In Phase II, we propose to build a prototype consisting of two coupled array processors with shared memory to prove that this design can achieve high speed and efficiency in a readily extensible and cost-effective manner. This will implement all of the hardware and software modifications necessary to extend this design to as many as 64 (or more) nodes. In our design, we seek to minimize the changes made in the standard system hardware and software; this drastically reduces the effort required by our group to implement such a design and enables us to more readily incorporate the companies' upgrades to the array processor. It should be emphasized that our design is intended as a special purpose system for theoretical calculations; however it can be efficiently applied to a surprisingly broad class of problems. I shall discuss first the architecture of the ST-100 and then the physics program being currently implemented on a single system. Finally the proposed design of the coupled system is presented.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 5480510
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/HEP-CP-85-64; CONF-8506158-1; ON: DE85014988
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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ARRAY PROCESSORS
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
COMPUTER NETWORKS
FIELD THEORIES
HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
LATTICE FIELD THEORY
PHYSICS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
SUPERCONDUCTORS