
A Crash Course in Modern Hardware - fogus
http://www.azulsystems.com/events/javaone_2009/session/2009_J1_HardwareCrashCourse.pdf
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ableal
A keeper, if nothing else (and there's much more) for the ultra-clear chart of
three stages of CPU performance, 1978-2006, on page 4.

The Azul Systems site mentions their own 54-core CPU (
<http://www.azulsystems.com/technology/vega> ), but there does not seem to be
much publicly available about the architecture. I was wondering if it was a
Sparc derivative (the PDF also mentions Sun's Niagara for Chip Multi
Threading). They had a legal tiff with Sun in 2005-2007 ...

Couple of links: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azul_Systems> ,
[http://www.taranfx.com/boost-java-performance-5x-times-
hardw...](http://www.taranfx.com/boost-java-performance-5x-times-hardware-
azul-based-review)

P.S. Coincidentally, one of the presentation's references for further reading
is the 2007 monograph by Ulrich Drepper also gracing the frontpage of HN today
at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1394346>

~~~
andrewvc
This tech talk is an in depth look at their CPU design process
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uljtqyBLxI>

~~~
ableal
Thanks. I just found out there's a text abstract one can click to expand ...
Snippets:

 _[...] The cores are our own design; simple 3-address RISCs with read- &
write-barriers to support GC, hardware transactional memory, zero-cost high-
rez profiling, and some more modest Java-specific tweaks. [...] history with
designing our own chips (1st silicon back from the fab had problems like the
bits in the odd-numbered registers bleeding into the even-numbered
registers)[...]_

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rbanffy
Very good presentation on performance and computer architecture with today's
technical limitations.

With the added feature of Azul making some of the coolest server hardware I
ever seen.

~~~
wmf
Considering the total lack of low-end models and the fact that you can't rent
it, Azul may be the coolest hardware most people have _never_ seen. Or is that
Tilera...

~~~
aarongough
I'd never heard of them, but it does seem that they're aiming for a niche
directly opposite to my usual experience.

Seems like they make some awesome stuff though!

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Roboprog
The idea in the presentation that reinforced my own bias: RAM is the new disk.
However, the details they presented make it look worse than I imagined, as
memory / FSB speeds are apparently grossly overstated.

Now, toss in VMs like Java and .NET walking the heap looking for garbage to
take out. Sounds like a cache-miss disaster, to me.

My opinion: <http://roboprogs.com/devel/2009.07.html#2009_07_30>

~~~
th0ma5
well, anything without a vm would be preferred for performance optimization on
the hardware, much like anything without needing to be compiled gives one the
most control. overall i think you are studying the right things. for me
lately, vm's have been okay. the jit compiler is impressive, and llvm & pypy
are interesting things too

