The IBM Blue Gene/Q interconnection network and message unit

TLDR

The IBM Blue Gene/Q is the third‑generation IBM Blue Gene supercomputer, and this paper first describes its interconnection network and message unit. The study aims to improve application scalability and performance by introducing new routing algorithms and techniques to parallelize packet injection and reception in the network interface. The authors implement new routing algorithms and parallel injection/reception techniques within the network interface to enhance scalability and performance. The architecture scales to 20 PF/s, integrates the network and message unit onto the same chip consuming only 8 % of area, and the measured hardware performance confirms these capabilities.

Abstract

This is the first paper describing the IBM Blue Gene/Q interconnection network and message unit. The Blue Gene/Q system is the third generation in the IBM Blue Gene line of massively parallel supercomputers. The Blue Gene/Q architecture can be scaled to 20 PF/s and beyond. The network and the highly parallel message unit, which provides the functionality of a network interface, are integrated onto the same chip as the processors and cache memory, and consume 8% of the chip's area. For better application scalability and performance, we describe new routing algorithms and new techniques to parallelize the injection and reception of packets in the network interface. Measured hardware performance results are also presented.