( DAC'20 Item 05c ) ----------------------------------------------- [10/21/21]
Subject: Sneak peeks at new Palladium Z2 and new Protium X2 is Best 2020 #5c
TWO SNEAK PEAKS: After some snooping around -- although I failed to get any
deep user data on the new SNPS and MENT HW boxes -- I'm proud to say that I
bagged two different users' sneak peaks on each of the new CDNS boxes!
These two users share some useful "first impression" data on what
upgrades Anirudh's HW R&D made over their prior CDNS boxes.
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A SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEW PALLADIUM Z2 EMULATOR
Cadence Palladium Z2
Our team got early access to Cadence's new Palladium Z2, so I can
share some rough comparisons to the old Palladium Z1.
1. 2X Capacity -- confirmed
- With the new Palladium Z2, we've seen 1.7x to 2.1x capacity
boost on multiple designs now.
- What took 2 logical drawers (LDs) on an old Z1, now takes
only 1 LD on the new Z2.
2. 1.5X Performance -- confirmed
- We also saw a 1.4x to 1.6x runtime improvement on multiple
designs. Our average speed with the new Z2 is now 1.8 MHz
instead of 1.2 MHz with the old Z1.
- Our regressions used to take roughly 48 hours. Now they
finish in 32 hours.
- Bring up of complex designs with the new Z2 is also faster.
It only now takes us 2 hours instead of 3 hours to reboot.
3. Scaling -- can not confirm
- We've run up to 600 M gates through the new Palladium Z2.
The Cadence guys claim it can handle up to 18.4 B gates,
but we haven't tested anywhere near to that level yet.
4. 3X faster host bandwidth -- confirmed
- We've tested BW on the new Z2 on a few designs. It was
up to ~3X faster for us.
5. Compiler speed -- fast but unchanged
- Cadence sped up the compiler with parallel processing,
but our designs are more complex. We compiled 100 M
gates in about one hour; simular to our old Palladium Z1
compile rates.
6. Multiuser capability -- unchanged
- Granularity is the same. Each logic drawer has 8 domains (the
smallest granularity), so 8 engineers can use each logic
drawers in parallel.
We like to see this kind of speed up. It's great that Cadence keeps
putting in the effort to make it run 1.5X faster every 4-5 years.
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AND A SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEW PROTIUM X2 PROTOTYPER
Hi, John,
We got an early license for the new Cadence Protium X2. I know you
like benchmarks, John, but this is the best I can share with you now
about how their new Protium X2 compares to the Protium X1.
- We've easily gotten 1.5X faster runtime speeds with the
new Protium X2 over the old Protium X1. By "easily", I
mean we didn't have massage anything.
- That made it so our we'd finish our regressions in only
3 days with the new X2, where with the old X1 they would
take up to a week (5 days)
- For capacity, Protium has 6 FPGA per blade and 1 user
per FPGA. They claim to support 6 users per blade -- but
we usually have 2 users per blade -- making 1 user per
3 FPGAs. They claim their new Protium X2 can hold
60 FPGAs that run 60 jobs in parallel; but we can not
confirm that capacity claim right now.
We've actually used all of Cadence's prototyping platforms over the
years and have watched them evolve to get to Protium X1.
- 2012 Cadence launched its first platform, RPP, based on
Altera FPGAs. It wasn't mature enough, but they
listened to our (almost daily) feedback.
- 2014 Cadence launched Protium 1 with Xilinx FPGAs. This time
their SW was more mature and usable i.e., production quality.
- 2017 We then moved to Protium S1. Cadence used the latest
Xilinx ultra-scale FPGAs for Protium S1 -- more robust
and closer to what Palladium emulation could offer.
We got 3-6 MHz speed. Plus, Cadence provides a way
to gang three Protium S1 chassis together to get a
600 M gate capacity. That sounds like a marketing
number, but we proved to ourselves that we could go
up to 450 M gates.
Cadence continued to listen to our suggestions to make
the prototyping platform even more scalable.
- 2019 We got Protium X1, with better scalability across more
racks. Protium X1 has 3-6MHz speed.
- 2021 We got Protium X2, with 1.5x speed up over Protium X2.
Cadence knew that adding prototyping was important for Palladium, and
they were lagging when they introduced their first RPP system years ago.
We agree on the Cadence Palladium/Protium unified compiles getting your
#1 Best of 2019 last year. That one ability has been a *major* buying
point for us because of the engineering man-hours it saves us.
It took time, but their persistence prototyping finally paid off. In
10 years, we've seen a 3x runtime improvement for Protium.
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We're getting the new Z2 coming in soon.
If I can, I'll get you benchmark numbers when I'm free.
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Related Articles
CDNS Palladium Z1 speed, uptime, & cloud access is Best of 2020 #5a
CDNS Protium "dynamic duo" hooks into Palladium is Best of 2020 #5b
... and Big 3 vendors launched new HW in 2021 and users want scoops!
Sneak peeks at new Palladium X2 and new Protium X2 is Best 2020 #5c
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