Intel leverages Stratix FPGAs to accelerate data centre computing
Intel has added the Intel Programmable Acceleration Card (PAC) with its most powerful FPGA, the Intel Stratix 10 SX FPGA. The high-bandwidth card leverages the Acceleration Stack for Intel Xeon CPU with FPGAs, allowing data centre developers to deploy FPGA-based accelerated workloads.
Following on from the earlier Intel PAC with Intel Arria 10 FPGA, the Intel PAC with Stratix 10 SX FPGA supports an ecosystem of design partners that delivers IP to accelerate a range of application workloads.
The Intel PAC with Stratix 10 SX FPGA is a larger form factor card built for inline processing and memory-intensive workloads, like streaming analytics and video transcoding. (The smaller form factor Intel PAC with Arria 10 FPGA is designed for back testing, data base acceleration and image processing workloads.)
It has been developed in response to increasing demands for big data and artificial intelligence (AI) increase, necessitating the reprogrammable technology of the FPGA to meet the processing requirements and changing workloads of data centre applications. The FPGA’s reconfigurable logic, memory and DSP blocks, mean that it can be programmed to execute any type of function with high throughput and real-time performance, making them, claims Intel, ideal for many critical enterprise and cloud applications.
The acceleration stack for Intel Xeon CPU with Intel FPGAs works with industry-leading OS, virtualisation and orchestration software partners, providing a common interface for software developers to get simplified management and access to a growing ecosystem of acceleration workloads.
The Intel PAC with Stratix 10 SX FPGA includes a production-grade FPGA interface manager (FIM) to which Intel and partner AFUs are connected. There is also an acceleration stack for Intel Xeon CPU with FPGAs, including a common set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and open-source drivers and support for native, network-attached workloads. Initial partners include Adaptive Microware and Megh Computing.
It was announced that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will be the first OEM to incorporate the Intel PAC with Stratix 10 SX FPGA along with the Intel Acceleration Stack for Intel Xeon Scalable processor with FPGAs into its server offering.
