Initial Explorations of ARM Processors for Scientific Computing
Digital Science and Computing Center, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
arXiv:1311.0269 [physics.comp-ph], (1 Nov 2013)
@article{2013arXiv1311.0269A,
author={Abdurachmanov}, D. and {Elmer}, P. and {Eulisse}, G. and {Muzaffar}, S.},
title={"{Initial Explorations of ARM Processors for Scientific Computing}"},
journal={ArXiv e-prints},
archivePrefix={"arXiv"},
eprint={1311.0269},
primaryClass={"physics.comp-ph"},
keywords={Physics – Computational Physics, Computer Science – Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing, Computer Science – Numerical Analysis, High Energy Physics – Experiment},
year={2013},
month={nov},
adsurl={http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013arXiv1311.0269A},
adsnote={Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
Power efficiency is becoming an ever more important metric for both high performance and high throughput computing. Over the course of next decade it is expected that flops/watt will be a major driver for the evolution of computer architecture. Servers with large numbers of ARM processors, already ubiquitous in mobile computing, are a promising alternative to traditional x86-64 computing. We present the results of our initial investigations into the use of ARM processors for scientific computing applications. In particular we report the results from our work with a current generation ARMv7 development board to explore ARM-specific issues regarding the software development environment, operating system, performance benchmarks and issues for porting High Energy Physics software.
November 4, 2013 by hgpu
