256 FPGA Cluster

• Computational Performance: Using up to 128 Xilinx Spartan–6 LX150 FPGAs in a fully scalable setup, RIVYERA provides an optimal cost-benefit ratio. Our newest variant allows even up to 256 FPGAs per machine, which allows a doubling of performance for applications with low communication requirements and in case that no memory expansion is required.
• Memory: Providing 512 MB DRAM (with the option of an additional 2 GB RAM module for each of the 128 FPGAs, a standard RIVYERA offers enough distributed memory for any application. Of course, the regular extremely high speed block RAM of the FPGAs is also available. Optional memory features only available for the standard version of the RIVYERA with up to 128 FPGAs.
• Additional Memory: Oftentimes, algorithms require look-ups in larger tables. With RIVYERA, you have the option to have one 32-GB SDHC card expansion per FPGA (4 TB total) to further enhance the distributed computation capabilities.

• x86 Processing Power: Joining standard x86 based architectures with high performance FPGA technology, RIVYERA allows your CPU to do what it has been originally designed for: Lower-performance, general purpose computing. Focusing on a hybrid computing approach, users can leave significant parts of their codes with little to no adjustments on the host-PC and only execute the most intensive parts of the application on the FPGAs.
• FPGA Acceleration: Xilinx is one of the world's leaders in high density FPGA technology and this shows in SciEngines massively parallel setups. RIVYERA S6-LX150 provides typical speedups from 1500 to 15000 CPU cores (depending on the algoritm) and thus easily surpasses competitive technologies like GPU computing or other FPGA-based products.
• High Speed Bus System: Offering interconnection technics from PCI-Express to Infiniband, SciEngines RIVYERA based platforms ensure to transport their backplane bandwidth into your IT-infrastructure.

• Unix Stability: RIVYERA utilizes an enterprise scale open source based LINUX OS. Oracle Enterprise Linux provides the reliability and power you expect from any PC operating system and seamlessly fits into your cluster set-up. It behaves "just like any other server in the network" and is simply orders of magnitude faster.
• Windows Flexebility: You would like to have Microsoft Windows preinstalled on your machine: No problem. SciEngines is Microsoft certified partner.
• Platform Support: Featuring APIs based on C, C++, Java, VHDL and Verilog, RIVYERA ensures to support nearly every platform. An easy to use communication framework together with a set of demo application enables rapid target application and algorithm integration.

The new RIVYERA S6-LX150 has a number of configuration options and, in addition to the FPGAs block RAM, provides 512 MB DDR3 RAM and optionally up to 32 GB micro SD-card based memory per FPGA. Depending on the number of FPGAs within your configuration of choice, more than 300 GB distributed RAM and several TB of micro-SD memory become available. Each FPGA accesses its local RAM with a bandwidth of up to 3.2 GB/s (see below graph for more detail), which leads to an enormous data-access rate of 200+ GB/s in a 16 cards / 128 FPGA setup - if the algorithms are suitable for such distributed processing.

Addressing the FPGAs is made easy by the API's usual and well-liked features like broadcasting, individual addressing of FPGAs and (partial) reconfiguration during run-time.For elaborate documentation of SciEngines' API and how it may support your development projects, please see our documentation section.

Our goal is to provide our customers the maximum of quality and reliabilty they could expect for their money. Using industry and military proven components and technics, SciEngines products and especially RIVYERA offers one of the most reliable high performance reconfigurable platforms worldwide. All our products are testet in an 48h stress-test to ensure minimum failures. Continuously thermal monitoring and redundant supplies allow our architecture to ensure operation even in tough environmental conditions. Some of our systems are running 24/7 at a German governmental association without any error nor fail or need of any maintenance in 5 years of operation.