Embedded multiprocessor system

Embedded multiprocessor system

Keywords: SKY Computers, Microprocessors

SKY Computers, Inc., a subsidiary of Analogic^® Corporation,has introduced the Merlin 500 embedded multiprocessor for VME boards and systems. Merlin is said to deliver 16 GFLOPS of performance on a 6in x 6in square circuit card and more than 1 TFLOP for a system of 16 VME 9U boards. It is believed to be the only multiprocessor product on the market to use four of the new 500MHz MPC74 10 PowerPC™ microprocessors with AltiVec™technology on a single daughtercard. The new Merlin 500 (Plate 4) is said to improve compute performance 50 per cent beyond the original Merlin multiprocessor at no additional cost to the customer. The new performance levels provide developers of computationally demanding programs such as military radar,signal intelligence, and weapon systems to process more data in real time and to reduce the size and complexity of their systems.

 Plate 4 The Merlin 500 from SKY Computers delivers 16 GFLOPS of performance on a 6in x 6in square circuit card and more than one TFLOP for a system of 16 VME 9U boards

Ed Hennessy, SKY vice president of worldwide sales, marketing and business development comments "Our commercial-off-the-shelf Merlin systems have generated 25 plus new design wins since its introduction. The new Merlin 500 in conjunction with the rugged Merlin Xtreme2™ gives SKY a unique edge in the market. We not only provide the highest performance COTS product with the Merlin 500, but we are the only vendor to provide one-stop shopping to our military customers for our class of technology that need both commercial and rugged deplorable systems".

Each Merlin 500 uses four 500 MHz MPC7410 PowerPC microprocessors that can be configured with up to 1GB of on-board memory. Merlin 500 on a 6U VME board delivers 16GFLOPS of performance, and will be the first platform upgrade,followed closely by the 9U VME board, which provides up to four Merlin 500 cards with 64 GFLOPS of performance and up to 4GB of memory in a single slot. This combination of high performance compute and memory reportedly reduces the number of required slots in an embedded system, resulting in considerable cost savings while opening up new opportunities for compute and memory-intensive applications. Table I demonstrates the performance of the new Merlin 500.

Merlin 500 claims to provide total performance in a single VME chassis of a record breaking 1.024TFLOPS. Fast floating-point processing with a projected price/perfomance ratio of $3 per MFLOP is thought to make Merlin 500 ideal for the most demanding image and signal processing applications including radar. SKY has maximized the use of the 2MB level 2 cache supported by the MPC7410 to provide developers with 1.5:1 processor to cache performance, resulting in optimal throughput. The new Merlin 500 boards and systems are 100 per cent source code compatible with current SKY products via the SKYvec™ software development environment, which provides for full forward and backward compatibility of customer applications.

Further details are available from Sky Computers, Inc. Tel: +1 978 250 1920;Fax: +1 978 250 0036; Web site: www.skycomputers.com