Innovative Systems Lab Resources

NCSA's Innovative Systems Laboratory has a 2,000-square-foot machine room where research is conducted on a variety of experimental platforms, including:

• A 32-node cluster with dual-CPU dual-core Intel Xeon chips, 2 NVIDIA Quadro Plex servers, and 1 Nallatech H101 card per node. (Read more about this cluster and codes that were successfully accelerated.)
• An SRC MAPStation with MAPC and MAPE reconfigurable logic processors
• Two SGI Alitx dual-CPU systems with RASC Athena reconfigurable logic bricks
• A workstation with XtremeData XD1000 in-socket FPGA accelerator module
• A workstation with PCI-based Nallatech FPGA board
• Dual-blade STI Cell Broadband Engine IBM blade center
• Dual- and quad-core systems with Intel and AMD chips
• A seven-node PC Linux cluster for parallel place-and-route of circuit designs and to house compilers.
• Berkeley Emulation Engine 2 (BEE2) system

ISL also maintains and provides access to a number of software development tools including:

• SRC Carte® C and Fortran compilers for SRC-6 system
• Mitrionics Mirtion-C compiler and processor configurations for SGI RASC and Nallatech platforms
• ImpulseC compiler with platform cores for XtremeData XD1000 system
• Xilinx System Generator for Matlab/Simulink
• Xilinx ISE, and the Synplify synthesis tools
• Altera Quartus II and ModelSim synthesis tools
• Nallatech DimeC suite for Nallatech system
• IBM Cell compiler and simulator for IBM Cell platform
• NVIDIA CUDA compiler and simulator for NVIDIA G80 platform
• Intel C/C++/Fortran compilers.

ISL staff work closely with technology vendors to enable early access to new systems before they become available in production.