Innovation Europe
The project also represents a step forward in terms of European
(EPAC), in the form of the massively parallel arrangement of
technological
‘EUPILOT
the HPC vector, machine learning and stencil accelerators.’ The
contributes to a sustainable exascale HPC ecosystem in Europe,
sovereignty,
according
to
Carlos.
project also has close ties to MEEP (see previous pages), which
helping lay the groundwork for long-term technical independence
is providing infrastructure and tools to simulate and emulate the
by delivering an end-to-end proof of concept, from chips to
accelerators and provide a software development vehicle for new
advanced datacentre deployments,’ he says. ‘These European
hardware features in the cores, as well as multicore and system-
IP accelerators and the customized software ecosystem will
level environments for the EUPILOT accelerator chips.
demonstrate a path to exascale levels of performance at an unparalleled scale of integration. The know-how to build these supercomputers, the boost in industrial competitiveness and closer cooperation will all help establish European digital autonomy.’
FURTHER INFORMATION:
eupilot.eu The European PILOT project has received funding from the European
To do so, the project will build on the work of other EU-funded
High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant
initiatives, explains Carlos. ‘Hardware-wise, EUPILOT leverages
agreement no. 101034126. The JU receives support from the European
and significantly scales up advancements made within the
Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Spain,
European Processor Initiative (EPI), such as the EPI Accelerator
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Greece, Sweden, Croatia and Turkey.
EPROCESSOR RISCS A MADE-IN-EUROPE CPU While
a
number
EU-funded
level synthesis (HLS) tools. ‘However, even if you know how to
projects focus on RISC-V accelerator
implement a certain part, it may be illegal to do so because there
development, the eProcessor project
is a patent on it,’ adds Nehir, citing MIPS’ response to the Yellow
aims to create a fully fledged central
Star core and the inability of the Plasma MIPS core to fully comply
processing
unit
of
on
with specifications until the patent expired as examples. Beyond
RISC-V. This open-source out-of-order
(CPU)
based
research, Nehir believes that the use of open-source hardware can
processor core, plus accompanying
have a positive impact on society by shedding light on the inner
accelerator and software stack, will
workings of computers that people use every day.
be made in Europe. HiPEAC caught up with eProcessor coordinator Nehir
In this sense, RISC-V has provided a welcome alternative to
Sönmez (Barcelona Supercomputing
black-box solutions, says Nehir. ‘RISC-V stemmed from an
Center) to find out how the project will contribute to the
academic instruction set architecture definition, straight out of
RISC-V ecosystem and provide a free alternative to Intel,
our computer architecture textbooks. Simple and efficient, it
AMD and ARM-based designs.
quickly attracted a large community of supporters, with many of the early efforts in Europe led by ETH Zürich through their PULP Barcelona
platform,’ he adds (see pp.24-25). ‘Actually, RISC-V builds on a
Supercomputing Center (BSC), the transparency of open source
tradition of dedicated open hardware efforts,’ says Nehir, ‘such
is what makes it so important for research. ‘The code is visible
as the OpenCores community and OpenRISC (c. 2000), and their
for everyone: you can test it, alter it, and make it visible again,’
heroic efforts such as the Zet X86 open implementation’.
For
Nehir
Sönmez,
a
senior
researcher
at
he says. ‘This is essential for research on modern computer architectures: you need clearly understandable baseline
Using open-source technologies can help Europe make inroads
implementations on which you can build and experiment.’
into the technological lead established by the world’s technology superpowers by attracting more people to pitch in, says Nehir.
Performing accurate research is currently hindered by the hermetic
‘Of course, the industry has a huge competitive advantage and
approach of proprietary hardware companies, explains Nehir. This
decades of experience producing hardware. When it comes to
means researchers are limited to unsatisfactory workarounds,
actually producing open-source hardware, there are also the
such as using complex software-based architectural simulators
prohibitive costs associated with professional vendor tools and
like gem5, or making educated guesses to describe the hardware
with taping out chips. That said, there is significant effort involved
using schematics, hardware-description languages (HDL) or high-
in providing open-source tools for hardware design and synthesis, HiPEACINFO 66 41
