EXCLUSIVE- SLAC installs hyper efficient server

admin — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:34:51 +0000

By Lou Covey
Editorial Director

A hyper-efficient, high-performance data center was recently installed at a SLAC facility in Menlo Park, California that operates on an energy efficiency several orders of magnitude over the most efficient data centers in the world— and it fits on the back end of a pickup truck.

While most server racks operate on a ratio of 1W of cooling power to 3-4W of processing power, the system installed at SLAC operates at a 1 to 200W ratio. The system is a collaborative project between Intel, Emerson Network Power, Panduit, One Stop Systems, Inc., Smart Modular, Inc. and Clustered Systems.

The high-density, high-performance system, located in the the LCLS (Linac Coherent Light Source) facility, comprises 128 servers in an 800mm wide 48U rack containing four chassis with built in cooling and a 105kW n+2 redundant power supply. Each chassis cools the servers directly via a pumped refrigerant, up to 20 kw per 8U chassis, with up to 5 fitting into a standard IT rack. The space for the fifth chassis was allocated to a high-performance switch.

“This is HPC, Cloud or even a Data Center in a box,” said Phil Hughes, CEO of Clustered Systems. “A user can put a system anywhere there is power. No special facilities are required. We have calculated that capital expense can be reduced by up to 50% and total energy consumption by 30%. All investment can go into compute and not have to be shared with bricks and mortar.”

“To be able to pack such computing power into such a small space is unprecedented,” said Amedeo Perazzo, Department Head Controls and Data Systems, Research Engineering Division at SLAC.

New Tech Press was given an exclusive look at the system. Watch the first part of the video here:

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Quest for the $10K Chip: The wild west of design services

admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 22:38:51 +0000

In the fourth installment of our Quest for the 10K chip series, We return to the last part of the interview with EDA Analyst Gary Smith to discuss the reemergence of design services and their role in reducing the cost of chip design. Smith believes the industry is headed toward a new generation of ASIC houses, and says the advantage of ESL is that it allows designs to be handed off at any number of various sign off points. Smith believes the design services segment is in for big growth in the coming years.

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EXCLUSIVE- SLAC installs hyper efficient server

Quest for the $10K Chip: The wild west of design services