FPGA-based acceleration solution interfaces to Intel Front Side Bus (FSB)

Enabled by the Virtex-5 platform FPGA and Intel QuickAssist Technology, the Xilinx Accelerated Computing Platform (ACP) M1 licensing package supports implementations capable of full 1066 MHz FSB performance. The ACP M1 licensing package is available today to system integrators for developing solutions that accelerate the performance of Intel processor-based server platforms while minimizing power consumption and total cost of ownership.

The folks at Nallatech will demonstrate the first commercial implementation of the ACP M1 package – called the "Slipstream Module" – at their booth (#161) during the Super Computing 2007 (SC07) conference, November 10-16, Reno, NV, USA.

While power efficiency is a critical requirement in many of today's computing environments, it conflicts with the growing demand for higher raw performance and throughput. FPGA-based accelerators allow applications – such as option futures pricing in financial analytics, nucleotide sequence analysis in bioinformatics, and sub-surface structure imaging in oil and gas exploration – to achieve the highest possible performance while still maintaining power efficiency.

Through a variety of initiatives under the banner of Intel QuickAssist Technology, Intel is supporting accelerator innovation targeting a variety of applications, markets and interconnects. For FPGA-based accelerators attached to the FSB, Intel developed the Intel QuickAssist Technology Accelerator Abstraction Layer (AAL), a set of platform-level services for accelerators. The ACP licensing package includes a board reference design developed by Xilinx, FSB protocol IP jointly developed by Intel and Xilinx validated for 1066 MHz operation, and the Intel QuickAssist AAL driver.

The Xilinx ACP M1 hardware reference design is pin compatible to an Intel Socket 604 Xeon processor and is targeted for the new Intel Xeon processor 7300 series multi-processor data center platform. With a 1066 MHz FSB interface, each Virtex-5 based ACP M1 module delivers 8.5 GByte/s of system memory bandwidth. Featuring four independent 1066 MHz FSB interfaces the 7300 data center platform delivers 34 GByte/s of aggregate bandwidth which enables a variety of FPGA and Xeon processor configurations (1:3, 2:2, or 3:1 are supported) without compromising system throughput. To demonstrate performance, one Virtex-5 FPGA-based ACP M1 module has been shown to accelerate a BGM-based Monte Carlo financial analytics application by over 30X compared to a single processor software only solution while consuming less than 15W.

ACP M1 reference package pricing and availability
The ACP M1 license package is available now to qualified system integrators wishing to develop commercial FSB accelerated platforms based on Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs. Qualification also requires an Intel FSB use license. The ACP M1 package includes a complete board reference design, FSB protocol IP qualified for operation at full 1066 MHz, and an Intel QuickAssist AAL driver. For further details, interested parties can contact Xilinx Business Development at acp@xilinx.com.

Nallatech SlipStream
Nallatech's Slipstream module is based on the ACP M1 platform. Slipstream development systems are available now with the commercial modules being available in Q1 2008. To find out more visit www.nallatech.com/fpgaaccelerator.