ATOLL - A Network on a chip!

ATOLL is a high-performance interconnect, which can be used as System Area Network (SAN) to build Clusters of PC's or workstations (NOW, COW). Here is an overview of its features:
  • A true Network on a Chip: four independent network interfaces (NIs), an 8x8 crossbar switch and four link interfaces in one single chip. No need for any external switching hardware, optimal support of SMP systems as cluster nodes through replicated NIs!
  • Advanced ASIC technology: about 5 million transistors in a state of the art IC technology (0.18um CMOS), running at 250+ MHz!
  • An optimized 64 bit/133 MHz PCI-X interface. The ATOLL card can also be used in 64bit 66 MHz PCI slots!
  • One-way latency will start at about 4 µs (ATOLL-API)!
  • Bandwidth approaches 221 Mbyte/s for a single sender, even for a few Kbytes. With all four NIs in use, an accumulated data rate of 400 Mbyte/s out of a single node is possible (with a 64 bit/ 66 Mhz PCI bus)! And even more when using the card in a PCI-X slot!
  • Data transfer via DMA or Programmed I/O! Hardware support for collective operations!
  • Error detection and data retransmission in hardware!
  • Support for Linux operating system. MPI(CH) on top of ATOLL API!
News
12.7.2004
The current issue (28/2004, S.15) of the magazine Computer-Zeitung contains an article about ATOLL, unfortunately only in German.
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3.6.2004
We have a stable MPICH2 for ATOLL. Further work will concentrate on performance optimizations.
22.4.2004
The current issue (May 2004) of the ClusterWorld Magazine contains an article about the ATOLL interconnect.
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