Michael Feldman AMD Shuffles Org Chart
Post Date: May 11, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

Late Monday, AMD announced an organizational shakeup, which included the creation of a new centralized engineering organization and the resignation of two top execs.

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Michael Feldman AMD Redraws Server Processor Roadmap
Post Date: May 07, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

On Wednesday, AMD presented its revised server processor plans for the next couple of years. The roadmap included the upcoming 45nm Shanghai chip, new six- and twelve-core Opteron processors, and the next-generation socket for DDR3 and PCIe Gen 2. AMD's new path also gives us some idea why Cray decided to play nice with Intel.

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Michael Feldman NASA Puts More Eggs in SGI's Basket
Post Date: May 06, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

A day after SGI said NASA would be installing a 245 teraflop Altix ICE machine at Ames Research Center, the space agency announced it would be teaming with SGI and Intel for their next generation petascale supercomputer, called Pleiades.

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Michael Feldman SGI Gets Another Big Win -- and another big loss
Post Date: May 05, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

Today SGI announced that NASA has selected a 245 teraflop Altix ICE supercomputer for the space agency's next major HPC system. Later in the day, the company posted a $40 million quarterly loss.

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Michael Feldman Aiming for Exaflops
Post Date: May 04, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Tensilica Inc. have announced a partnership to research exascale supercomputing design. The program will combine LBNL's supercomputing smarts with Tensilica's expertise in microprocessor technology.

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Michael Feldman Culture Wars Redux
Post Date: April 30, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

I got my share of both condemnation and praise from last week's rant about our anti-intellectual culture. I'll save the attaboys for my personal file, but I'd like to share a couple of the more coherent critical responses I received...

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Michael Feldman A Brand New Circuit
Post Date: April 30, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

HP Labs seems to have come up with something pretty cool. Earlier today, researchers there claimed they'd proven the existence of the "memristor," the fourth fundamental type of electrical circuit.

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Michael Feldman The Inevitable Alliance
Post Date: April 28, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

It's funny how events are always seen as inevitable after they happen. That's the feeling I got from Monday's announcement of the new Cray-Intel alliance. The two companies have joined forces to research and develop multi-petaflop HPC technology for the next decade. It makes sense the iconic x86 chipmaker should hook up with the iconic supercomputer maker, especially considering that manycore computing and the ensuing programming challenges are forcing ...

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Michael Feldman HPCwire 2.0
Post Date: April 27, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

If you're a regular reader, I'm sure you've noticed that we've done a major upgrade to the HPCwire website. Along with our regular Features section and breaking news (now called Off the Wire), we've included a Top Headline area that aggregates important HPC stories from other publications. We've also added a blog section, where yours truly will continue to add some personal perspective using my 'From the Editor' platform, and ...

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Michael Feldman High-Tech in an Anti-Intellectual Culture
Post Date: April 24, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

"Over 75 percent of Americans don't know they're alive." I half expect to see such a headline someday as yet another example of how poorly educated the U.S. citizenry has become. It's not quite that bad yet, but research has consistently shown us how uneducated students and working adults are in this country. The data reflects not just a lack of education, but a lack of commitment to ...

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Michael Feldman Intel, IBM Speed Through Economic Slowdown
Post Date: April 17, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

If you've been listening to the financial news for the past six months, the future seems pretty grim. Intel and IBM seemed relatively unscathed by the all the doom and gloom talk. But AMD is another story.

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Michael Feldman Big Changes Ahead for HPCwire!
Post Date: April 17, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

Get ready for a new and improved HPCwire. We're getting set to launch a completely revamped Web site for the publication, which will include lots of new editorial content, better navigation, RSS feeds, interactive discussions, and a state-of-the-art Job Bank.

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Michael Feldman SiCortex Gets Personal
Post Date: April 10, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

Has SiCortex found the right formula for the personal supercomputer? Introduced in November 2007, the company's Catapult SC072 is a deskside mini-cluster that can be plugged into a standard wall outlet. Positioned as the entry-level system in the SiCortex family of MIPS processor-based supers, the Catapult is attracting the attention of some big names in the HPC universe.

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Michael Feldman Spring Brings Bloom of New Offerings
Post Date: April 03, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

HPC vendors seem to have awakened from their winter slumber. A trio of notable products were released into the spring sunshine this week: the first QDR (40 Gbps) InfiniBand adapter from Mellanox; an on-demand HPC development platform from Interactive Supercomputing; and, from newcomer ScaleMP, a flash module that aggregates x86 servers into a virtual SMP.

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Michael Feldman HPC Apathy Belies Robust Market
Post Date: March 27, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

In a recent report by Forrester Research, analyst Frank Gillett makes the case that HPC and grid computing are not generating broad interest in the enterprise. He comes to the conclusion that vendors should emphasize customer business solutions rather than technology themes. Editor Michael Feldman offers his take on the analysis.

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Michael Feldman Procter & Gamble's Adventures in High-End Computing
Post Date: March 20, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

Software is one of Tom Lange's favorite subjects -- or least favorite, depending on his mood. Lange heads the modeling and simulation group at Procter & Gamble and is responsible for enlisting computer technology to help develop the company's vast array of consumer products. He spoke last week at the HPC Horizons Summit in Palm Springs, to talk about his company's use of scientific computing technology.

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Michael Feldman HPC on the Fast Track
Post Date: March 13, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: From the Editor

Formula One racing seems to be on an HPC tear lately. Last week, we covered the purchase of an Appro system for Renault's F1 Team. This week, we look at how Red Bull Racing is using Platform LSF to get the most out of their three cluster systems.

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Michael Feldman Ethernet, InfiniBand Musings
Post Date: March 06, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

There seems to be a general consensus that the datacenter needs to settle on a unified network fabric. The question is, which one? Both Ethernet and InfiniBand vendors have staked claim to unifying the datacenter on their favorite technology.

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Michael Feldman Human-Scale Supercomputing
Post Date: February 28, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

Save for the occasional article in the mainstream media about how supercomputers have predicted climate changes or discovered some mystery of the universe, most of high performance computing is hidden from public view. The missing element in most stories about supercomputers is how they relate to the human condition at the scale of the individual. But new applications may be on the way that make HPC more personal.

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Michael Feldman Requiem for a Cluster Vendor
Post Date: February 21, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

The decline and fall of Linux Networx may serve as a cautionary tale to other struggling HPC vendors. What happened to the feel-good HPC cluster company of 2000-2006?

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Michael Feldman AMD Searches for an HPC Strategy
Post Date: February 14, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

With AMD fighting to regain profitability in 2008, what will become of the company's efforts to maintain its presence in the lower volume high performance computing market? Editor Michael Feldman talked with David Rich, director of marketing for HPC at AMD, to get a sense of the company's strategy for its high-end computing products over the next couple of years.

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Michael Feldman A Modest Proposal for Petascale Computing
Post Date: February 07, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

In typical forward-thinking California fashion, the folks at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are already looking beyond single petaflop systems. LBNL researchers have started to explore what a multi-petaflop computer architecture might look like, pointing out that power and system costs will constrain how such machines can be built.

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Michael Feldman Looking for a Tech-Savvy President
Post Date: January 31, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

For the first time in decades, the majority of the American electorate will have a chance to choose the presidential nominees of both major parties. As we head into the 22-state Super Tuesday presidential primaries on February 5th, this might be a good time to take a look at the candidates' views on science and technology issues.

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Michael Feldman Bumps on the Flat Earth
Post Date: January 24, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

In response to last week's "Flat Earth" commentary, I received several thoughtful letters. One of the most interesting was from Enda O'Brien, the founder and director of Parallel Programming Services in Ireland, who argued that the world is not nearly flat enough. If it were, he says, salaries of technology workers would be much more globally equitable than they actually are.

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Michael Feldman The Unbearable Flatness of Being
Post Date: January 17, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

Globalization in the 21st century is rapidly leveling the economic playing field and a number of respected analysts believe that science and technology competency will be the criteria that separates the winners from the losers.If so, Americans may be in for a rough ride.

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Michael Feldman Rising Up to the Cloud
Post Date: January 10, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

Cloud computing, the scaled-out manifestation of grid computing, is casting a growing shadow on the industry these days. Everyone, it seems, wants in. Is HPC ready to make the jump?

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Michael Feldman HPC Developments to Watch in 2008
Post Date: January 03, 2008 @ 9:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Blog: From the Editor

In the relentless drive for more compute power, the new year will see a plethora of new multicore processors, faster interconnects, and bigger machines. But 2008 will be more of a consolidation year for HPC as OEMs and users catch up to the new technology introduced in 2007.

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