GE puts CUDA on single board computer

Single board computer combines Intel Core2 Duo, NVIDIA CUDA and OpenVPX for 390GFLOPS in a slot

GE Intelligent Platforms has launched a rugged 6U OpenVPX Single Board Computer (SBC) that is the first with an integrated GPGPU (general purpose computing on a graphics processing unit) capability. The IPN250 delivers high levels of computing performance for size, weight and power (SWaP) constrained platforms at lower cost, creating new application opportunities. It enables system integrators to deploy a single COTS module where previously multiple disparate modules would have been required – undertaking, for example, front end processing of sensor-acquired data, digital signal processing, backend processing and graphics/video processing, and delivering high resolution mission critical data more rapidly than has previously been possible.
The IPN250 is the second product from GE to feature NVIDIA’s CUDA technology: the CUDA-enabled GRA111 3U graphics board was announced in November 2009. CUDA is becoming increasingly attractive to systems integrators in military and aerospace since it has been demonstrated to be capable of enabling performance gains of up to 100x in a range of applications: its innovative technology and openness create the opportunity for improved productivity and sustainable competitive advantage. It is increasingly mandated by some Department of Defense (DoD) program offices because it offers increased flexibility and reduced cost of ownership when compared with previous FPGA-centric solutions.
“The IPN250 allows customers to easily deploy sophisticated applications developed on NVIDIA-enabled PCs directly onto a rugged GPGPU platform, reducing risk to schedules and shortening time to deployment,” said Peter Cavill, General Manager, Military & Aerospace Products at GE Intelligent Platforms. “It reduces cost by leveraging the growing ecosystem of software programmers creating high performance computing applications in standard development environments such as CUDA, OpenCL, OpenGL and MATLAB, to support long term code portability across multiple generations of COTS hardware platforms.”
The IPN250 combines NVIDIA’s latest GT240 96-core GPU with an Intel® Core™2 Duo processor operating at 2.26GHz and 8 GBytes of DDR3 SDRAM to deliver up to 390 GFLOPS of performance per card slot, depending on the application. It is designed from the ground up to be compliant with the OpenVPX standard, ensuring interoperability with a broad range of other OpenVPX boards. Providing a computationally-dense platform, the IPN250 is ideal for demanding applications that are constrained in terms of size, weight and power (SWaP). It is also VITA48/REDI-compliant, allowing it to be deployed in the harshest environments: build options for air-, spray- and conduction cooling are available.
The IPN250 feature set includes two primary data plane, 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports supporting multi-board switched fabric OpenVPX architectures. A 16-lane PCI Express gen2 interface on the P2 expansion plane provides high speed interconnect for multi-board GPGPU clusters as well as system I/O to PCI Express-enabled sensor modules such as GE’s family of Xilinx Virtex5 and Virtex6 mezzanine cards. Two 1000Base-T and two 1000Base-Bx control plane ports are available, together with additional PCI Express, USB 2.0 , SATA, COM ports, GPIO , audio and TV input. Video and multimedia is supported via the dual link DVI, HDMI and VGA ports directly into the NVIDIA GT240 device to cater for a wide range of interfaces.
GE Intelligent Platforms’ AXISLib advanced multiprocessor software development VSIPL, DSP and math libraries for CUDA and INTEL SSE4 facilitate application development and code portability for the IPN250 and future GPGPU platforms. In addition to NVIDIA’s CUDA environment, supported software includes Linux, Windows, Microsoft DirectX, OpenCL, OpenGL and MATLAB, together with NVIDIA’s PureVideo Technology and PhysX.

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Supercomputing moves into harsh environments

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, part of GE Enterprise Solutions, has developed a rugged processing board with the performance of a supercomputer.
The OpenVPX-compatible GRA111 high performance graphics board is one of the first commercially-available products to feature Nvidia’s newly-announced GT 240 GPU (graphics processing unit) and is also the first rugged implementation of a GPU using Nvidia's CUDA (Compute Unified, Device Architecture). The board is the first result of a relationship with Nvidia announced on October 8th.
The GRA111 is the first member of GE Fanuc’s planned family of CUDA-enabled products that are expected to revolutionize military and aerospace embedded computing by bringing a supercomputing capability to applications and environments that require leading edge processing such as radar, signals intelligence and video surveillance and interpretation. For example, radar systems can run up to 15 times faster.

“The enormous potential of the GPGPU – the general purpose graphics processing unit – with its massively parallel computing architecture is just beginning to become apparent to developers in the military and aerospace field,” said Rob McKeel, Vice President, Embedded Systems at GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. “What we are announcing today is an exciting first: a new compact, lightweight platform that can deliver exceptional levels of computing performance in demanding applications and challenging environments.”

NVIDIA’s CUDA is a general purpose parallel computing architecture that takes advantage of the parallel compute engine in NVIDIA GPUs to solve many computational problems in a fraction of the time required on a general purpose CPU. It includes the CUDA Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and the parallel compute engine of the GPU.
CUDA has been shown to deliver a 100x increase in speed in a broad range of applications that lend themselves to parallel computing. Early tests at GE Fanuc have shown that military applications can benefit from similar increases in speed. A major prime contractor in the military/aerospace industry has evaluated the CUDA architecture in a radar system, and found that performance improvement of 15x is achievable with minimal reprogramming effort.
The 3U format GRA111 derives much of its performance from the 96 cores, 128-bit memory interface, 1 GByte of DDR3 video memory, 16-lane PCI Express Gen 2 interface, 540MHz graphics clock and 1.3GHz processor clock of the GPU.
Optionally available as an LRM (Line Replaceable Module) in accordance with the VPX-REDI (VITA 48) standard and with a rich set of I/O, the GRA111 can also be applied to many of the most common graphics and video applications. Dual, independent channels mean that it is capable of driving RGB analog component video, digital DVI 1.0, and HDMI standards. In addition, the GRA111’s video input capability allows integration of sensor data using RS170, NTSC or PAL video formats.

Downturn hits as GE Fanuc splits

GE Fanuc Automation, the twenty year old joint venture between GE and FANUC, is to be dismantled by the end of the year. GE and FANUC expect the transaction to be completed by the end of this year, subject to satisfactory customary closing conditions. It denies the split is due to market conditions, see comments above.
Set up in 1986, GE Fanuc Automation serves a vast array of industries around the world including the energy, water, consumer packaged goods, government & defence, and telecommunications industries with hardware and software solutions, services, automation and embedded computing systems.
Under the terms of the agreement GE retains the software, services, embedded systems and control systems businesses globally. The company will be known as GE Intelligent Platforms, and will be led by GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms CEO Maryrose Sylvester. FANUC retains the global CNC business.

FANUC Honorary Chairman Dr. Seiuemon Inaba said, “Our joint venture has achieved great success toward its original mission, which was to cooperate on the global growth and technical development of the PLC and CNC business. Over this time period, markets and opportunities also have changed dramatically, and both companies further expanded into adjacent segments. Today’s market conditions are such that it’s imperative we pursue these expanded opportunities, and while we have achieved great things together, it’s in both our best interests that we focus our efforts on industry opportunities unique to our respective companies and that will deliver greater benefits to both our companies.”

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms CEO Maryrose Sylvester said, "GE could not have asked for better partners than Dr. Inaba and FANUC. GE is proud of what our companies have achieved together - both the industry expertise and success across our product portfolios. For GE, this change will mean a continued, intense focus on serving our customers around the world while continuing to invest in significant growth platforms like process control systems, enterprise and automation software and embedded computing as we continue to build further expertise around the GE vertical infrastructure segments."
“Our top priority is a smooth completion of transition and continuity for all customers, business partners and employees. We are committed to delivering our customer commitments in every segment of our business."