Event-driven configuration of a neural network CMP system over an homogeneous interconnect fabric

M.M. Khan, A.D. Rast, J. Navaridas, X. Jin, L.A. Plana, M. Luján, S. Temple, C. Patterson, D. Richards, J.V. Woods, J. Miguel-Alonso, S.B. Furber
2011 Parallel Computing  
Configuring a million-core parallel system at boot time is a difficult process when the system has neither specialised hardware support for the configuration process nor a preconfigured default state that puts it in operating condition. SpiNNaker is a parallel Chip Multiprocessor (CMP) system for neural network (NN) simulation. Where most large CMP systems feature a sideband network to complete the boot process, SpiNNaker has a single homogeneous network interconnect for both application
more » ... rocessor communications and system control functions such as boot load and run-time user-system interaction. This network improves fault tolerance and makes it easier to support dynamic run-time reconfiguration, however, it requires a boot process that is transaction-level compatible with the application's communications model. Since SpiNNaker uses event-driven asynchronous communications throughout, the loader operates with purely local control: there is no global synchronisation, state information, or transition sequence. A novel two-stage "unfolding" boot-up process efficiently configures the SpiNNaker hardware and loads the application using a high-speed flood-fill technique with support for run-time reconfiguration. SystemC simulation of a multi-CMP SpiNNaker system indicates an error-free CMP configuration time of 1.3 ms, while a high-level simulation of a full-scale system (64K CMPs) indicates a mean application-loading time of ∼20ms (for a 100KB application), which is virtually independent of the size of the system. We verified the CMP configuration process with hardware-level Verilog simulation.
doi:10.1016/j.parco.2011.02.003 fatcat:xznsapdhsne4xemiwgns2aop34