[software] 'Sargantana': a Spanish chip to learn how to make a European supercomputer

[ぁ Ꭷbito-]

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center launches its third open source processor, the first to exceed one gigahertz of power. The Marenostrum 5 has not yet begun to make calculations and at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC) they have been thinking about it for a long time. what the next version of your supercomputer will be like. The path to achieve this will be more or less long, it is expected by the end of this decade, and a 2.5 by 1.2 millimeter rectangle is a small proof that that journey has already begun. It is a chip called sargantana - lizard in Catalan and Aragonese -, the third open source chip developed completely in Spain, and one more step for the Marenostrum 6 to be a true milestone: it not only enters the rankings for its power of calculation, but to work for the first time with local technology. It will be a first step so that, in its seventh version, its components can be completely European.

“The design of this microchip is not for a supercomputer, but its development has to allow us to learn,” clarifies Miquel Moretó, BSC researcher and coordinator of the area in charge of development to create their own microprocessors. The path of computational sovereignty that the European Union wants to achieve is so remote that it will only be possible to follow it step by step. And some of them will be recognized as successes due to the difficulty of gaining speed in a subject consecrated in other latitudes, but not in Spain. For example, it is a milestone that the sargantana can work at a speed greater than one gigahertz, despite the fact that the most advanced processors in the world multiply that capacity by six. “We have a series of specific instructions for genomics and machine learning, but it is not a high-performance processor, although it is very good in energy efficiency,” says the researcher, who believes that the microprocessor would work well in smartphones. In any case, his objective is not to market it. It is intended primarily as teaching material. The hundred microchips that just arrived from TSMC and Global Foundry are being tested at the center. The next versions can now be distributed by universities for free to continue along the path, while for now the existing ones are used to start producing teaching material. At the moment, it is just a prototype.

Sargantana is the third generation of a saga that came to light in 2019, when the Supercomputing Center began to collaborate with the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico to improve its Lagarto chip. The second generation arrived in 2022 with the DVINO. And this third edition breaks that ceiling of one billion operations per second of work capacity.

https://elpais.com/tecnologia/2023-12-13/sargantana-un-chip-espanol-para-aprender-a-hacer-un-supercomputador-europeo.html