Volume: 1 Spring 2007
The SiCortex DMA Engines: Almost Like a Cluster Within a Cluster
The SC5832 and SC648 are really three-level systems. At the top layer in Linux. Within the Linux application environment is a highly tuned MPI library. Supporting MPI is the array of autonomous DMA Engines that drive the fabric. The DMA Engine's micro-code is tuned to MPI, but is also well-adapted for other communications strategies. Like all the other SiCortex software, the SiCortex MPI Library is open source (as is the DMA Engline microcode itself, for that matter).
Users of Linux/MPI applications get full benefit from the DMA Engine automatically. SiCortex has microcoded the Engine to match the needs of MPI, and implemented an optimized MPI library to take advantage of these facilities. Both benefit from the Kautz Graph fabric's enormous bandwidth and minimal latency. (More details about the Kautz graph are available in the Winter edition of this newsletter.)
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