BRIGE: POWER DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH AND EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT FOR FUTURE MANY-CORE COMPUTING PLATFORMS

University Of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa AL

Investigators

Abstract

BRIGE: POWER DELIVERY TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH AND EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT FOR FUTURE MANY-CORE COMPUTING PLATFORMS ABSTRACT: The objective of this effort is to establish innovative research and educational activities for multi-core and many-core power delivery technologies for future high performance computing platforms that are suitable for sustaining multidimensional and interdisciplinary state-of-the-art research. Multi-core and many-core chip and processor designs promise significant breakthroughs in computing platform performance that are used in critical applications in our daily lives. Such computing technologies and designs require the rethinking of power delivery technologies by defining new research directions and activities to improve energy efficiency, improve performance, and reduce size and cost. These applications, for example, include medical applications, complex weather simulations, virtual reality and advanced graphics, video conferencing, manufacturing processes controls, engineering complex analysis, education and entertainment. Such applications impact peoples' daily life, scientific advancement, economical growth, health, safety and security. Intellectual Merits: Recent chip and processor designs have started to utilize few cores and currently are powered using conventional power delivery technologies, which may be sufficient for now even though not optimum, until the research in this area advances. Future chip and processor designs are expected to include tens and hundreds of cores that can be homogeneous and/or heterogeneous with multiple non-uniform workloads. This will result in the power delivery system being subjected to highly varying and unpredictable power demands thus impacting energy efficiency and dynamic performance. This research addresses these challenges by developing an integrated simulation platform including efficiency model(s), dynamic response model(s) and homogeneous and heterogeneous many-core loading profiles model(s) that will be used to investigate and rethink power delivery design for many-core platforms. Based on the preliminary results obtained from the developed simulation platform, a reconfigurable research platform will also be developed that includes different power converter topologies, and programmable control and power management implementations supporting multiple heterogeneous and homogeneous many-core workloads. Broader Impacts: The research activities and related educational activities are designed to attract the participation of engineers from all segments of the engineering community, including those from underrepresented and minority groups such as women and African Americans, to the area of power delivery and energy systems management especially as applied to the state-of-the-art and future computing platforms that has an impact on wide range of applications and markets. Research and educational activities include research presentations and seminars at selected Historically Black Colleges and Universities institutions, the University of Alabama Student Introduction to Engineering program, and the organization of a Many-Core Power Delivery Open House Day involving industry, students, and persons from underrepresented groups. The results will also be disseminated through refereed publications and through a new course for many-core power delivery designs that will be developed and disseminated.