Hardware acceleration in the IBM PowerEN processor

Abstract

Computation at the edge of a datacenter has unique characteristics; it deals with streaming data from multiple sources, often requiring repeated application of several standard algorithmic kernels. The demand for high data rates and power efficiency points toward hardware acceleration of key functions. These accelerators must be tightly integrated with general purpose computation to keep invocation overhead and latency low. The accelerators must be easy for software to use, and the system must be flexible enough to support evolving networking standards.