ADVANCED HIGH-PERFORMANCE RECONFIGURABLE COMPUTERS WITH IMMERSION COOLING
Abstract
The paper deals with prospects for the design of high-performance reconfigurable computing devices based on modern Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGAs. The aim of the research is the computational density up to 128 LSI FPGAs in one 3U 19’ product. Besides, it is necessary to provide the required powersupply and cooling of the system’s computing elements during execution of computationally expensive tasks. To provide the product’s required parameters in the given design package, we made the topology of our printed circuit boards and the design technology of their parts more complex. To cool the components of our computer system, we use the immersion technology. The distinction of the designed computer systems is wide capabilities of data exchange inside the block and among the blocks. It is crucial for tightly-coupled tasks, where the number of data transfers among functional devices is much higher than the number of such devices. As the main links between FPGAs, we use differential lines with multigigabit transceivers (MGT). The optical channels based system of data exchange among the blocks is provides the throughput over 2 Tbit/sec. We designed and produced a prototype of a computational module based on UltraScale+ FPGAs, and a prototype of a reconfigurable computational block. The computational block contains a general-purpose processor and all needed input-output interfaces. It is a stand-alone device. We used the new-generation computational module for implementation of several algorithms of various scientific and technical problems, and proved its wide applicability. We designed a modified immersion cooling subsystem, which dissipates total heat up to 20 kW. To achieve such level of heat dissipation, we implemented technical solutions concerning all components of the cooling system: the cooling agent, heat sinks, the pump, the heat-exchange unit. It is possible to unite several blocks into computer complexes with the performance up to tens of petaflops. Such complexes require a suitable engineering infrastructure.
