POWER9
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POWER9 is a family of
superscalar A superscalar processor (or multiple-issue processor) is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. In contrast to a scalar processor, which can execute at most one single in ...
, multithreading,
multi-core A multi-core processor (MCP) is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit (IC) with two or more separate central processing units (CPUs), called ''cores'' to emphasize their multiplicity (for example, ''dual-core'' or ''quad-core''). Ea ...
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...
s produced by
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
, based on the
Power ISA Power ISA is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) currently developed by the OpenPOWER Foundation, led by IBM. It was originally developed by IBM and the now-defunct Power.org industry group. Power IS ...
. It was announced in August 2016. The POWER9-based processors are being manufactured using a 14 nm
FinFET A fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) is a multigate device, a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) built on a substrate where the gate is placed on two, three, or four sides of the channel or wrapped around the chann ...
process, in 12- and 24-core versions, for
scale out Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number ...
and scale up applications, and possibly other variations, since the POWER9 architecture is open for licensing and modification by the
OpenPOWER Foundation The OpenPOWER Foundation is a collaboration around Power ISA-based products initiated by IBM and announced as the "OpenPOWER Consortium" on August 6, 2013. IBM's focus is to open up technology surrounding their Power Architecture offerings, such ...
members.
Summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...
, the ninth fastest supercomputer in the world (based on the Top500 list as of June 2024), is based on POWER9, while also using
Nvidia Tesla Nvidia Tesla is the former name for a line of products developed by Nvidia targeted at stream processing or GPGPU, general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPU), named after pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. Its products began us ...
GPUs as accelerators.


Design


Core

The POWER9 core comes in two variants, a four-way multithreaded one called ''SMT4'' and an eight-way one called ''SMT8''.Big Blue Aims For The Sky With Power9
/ref> The SMT4- and SMT8-cores are similar, in that they consist of a number of so-called ''slices'' fed by common schedulers. A slice is a rudimentary 64-bit single-threaded processing core with load store unit (LSU), integer unit (ALU) and a vector scalar unit (VSU, doing SIMD and floating point). A ''super-slice'' is the combination of two slices. An SMT4-core consists of a 32  KiB L1 cache (1 KiB = 1024 bytes), a 32 KiB L1 data cache, an instruction fetch unit (IFU) and an instruction sequencing unit (ISU) which feeds two super-slices. An SMT8-core has two sets of L1 caches and, IFUs and ISUs to feed four super-slices. The result is that the 12-core and 24-core versions of POWER9 each consist of the same number of slices (96 each) and the same amount of L1 cache. A POWER9 core, whether SMT4 or SMT8, has a 12-stage pipeline (five stages shorter than its predecessor, the
POWER8 POWER8 is a family of superscalar multi-core microprocessors based on the Power ISA, announced in August 2013 at the Hot Chips conference. The designs are available for licensing under the OpenPOWER Foundation, which is the first time for suc ...
), but aims to retain the clock frequency of around 4 GHz. It will be the first to incorporate elements of the Power ISA v.3.0 that was released in December 2015, including the VSX-3 instructions. The POWER9 design is made to be modular and used in more processor variants and used for licensing, on a different fabrication process than IBM's.The Prospects For A Power9 Revolution
/ref> On chip are co-processors for compression and cryptography, as well as a large low-latency eDRAM L3 cache. The POWER9 comes with a new interrupt controller architecture called ''"eXternal Interrupt Virtualization Engine"'' (XIVE) which replaces a much simpler architecture that was used in POWER4 through POWER8. XIVE will also be used in Power10.


Scale out / scale up

* IBM POWER9 ''SO'' scale-out variant, optimized for dual socket computers with up to 120 GB/s bandwidth (1 GB = 1 billion bytes) to directly attached DDR4 memory (targeted for release in 2017) * IBM POWER9 ''SU''
scale-up SCALE-UP, Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-Down Pedagogies, is a classroom specifically created to facilitate active, collaborative learning in a classroom. The spaces are carefully designed to facilitate interactions betwe ...
variant, optimized for four sockets or more, for large NUMA machines with up to 230 GB/s bandwidth to buffered memory (uses "25.6 GHz" signaling with the PowerAXON 25 GT/sec Link interface) Both POWER9 variants can ship in versions with some cores disabled due to yield reasons, as such Raptor Computing Systems first sold 4-core chips, and even IBM initially sold its AC922 systems with no more than 22-core chips, even though both types of chips have 24 cores on their dies.


I/O

A lot of facilities are on-chip for helping with massive off-chip I/O performance: * The ''SO'' variant has integrated DDR4 controllers for directly attached RAM, while the ''SU'' variant will use the off-chip
Centaur A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...
architecture introduced with POWER8 to include high performance
eDRAM Embedded DRAM (eDRAM) is dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) integrated on the same die or multi-chip module (MCM) of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or microprocessor. eDRAM's cost-per-bit is higher when compared to equivale ...
L4 cache and memory controllers for DDR4 RAM. * The ''Bluelink'' interconnects for close attachment of graphics co-processors from
Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...
(over NVLink v.2) and
OpenCAPI Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (CAPI), is a high-speed processor expansion bus standard for use in large data center computers, initially designed to be layered on top of PCI Express, for directly connecting central processing units (CP ...
accelerators.Nvidia's NVLink 2.0 will first appear in Power9 servers next year
/ref> * General purpose PCIe v.4 connections for attaching regular
ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficien ...
s,
FPGA A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is a type of configurable integrated circuit that can be repeatedly programmed after manufacturing. FPGAs are a subset of logic devices referred to as programmable logic devices (PLDs). They consist of a ...
s and other peripherals as well as CAPI 2.0 and CAPI 1.0 devices designed for POWER8. * Multiprocessor (
symmetric multiprocessor system Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all ...
) links to connect other POWER9 processors on the same motherboard, or in other closely attached enclosures.


Chip types

POWER9 chips can be made with two types of cores, and in a Scale Out or Scale Up configuration. POWER9 cores are either SMT4 or SMT8, with SMT8 cores intended for PowerVM systems, while the SMT4 cores are intended for PowerNV systems, which do not use PowerVM, and predominantly run Linux. With POWER9, chips made for Scale Out can support directly-attached memory, while Scale Up chips are intended for use with machines with more than two CPU sockets, and use buffered memory.
Slides
(PDF)
AIX VUG page
has links to slides and video


Modules

The IBM Portal for OpenPOWER lists the three available modules for the Nimbus chip, although the Scale-Out SMT8 variant for PowerVM also uses the LaGrange module/socket: * ''Sforza'' – 50 mm × 50 mm, 4 DDR4, 48 PCIe lanes, 1 XBus 4BIBM Portal for OpenPOWER - POWER9 - Sforza Module
/ref> * ''Monza'' – 68.5 mm × 68.5 mm, 8 DDR4, 34 PCIe lanes, 1 XBus 4B, 48 OpenCAPI lanesIBM Portal for OpenPOWER - POWER9 - Monza Module
/ref> * ''LaGrange'' – 68.5 mm × 68.5 mm, 8 DDR4, 42 PCIe lanes, 2 XBus 4B, 16 OpenCAPI lanesIBM Portal for OpenPOWER - POWER9 - LaGrange Module
/ref> Sforza modules use a land grid array (LGA) 2601-pin socket.


Systems


Raptor Computing Systems / Raptor Engineering

* ''Talos II'' – two-socket workstation/server platform using POWER9 SMT4 Sforza processors;Raptor Computing Systems Wiki - OpenPOWER
/ref> available as 2U server, 4U server, tower, or EATX mainboard. Marketed as secure and owner-controllable with free and
open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
software and firmware. Initially shipping with 4-core, 8-core, 18-core, and 22-core chip options until chips with more cores are available. * ''Talos II Lite'' – single-socket version of the Talos II mainboard, made using the same PCB. * ''Blackbird'' – single-socket microATX platform using SMT4 Sforza processors (up to 8-core 160 W variant), 4–8 cores, 2 RAM slots (supporting up to 256 GiB total)


Google–Rackspace partnership

* ''Barreleye G2 / Zaius'' – two-socket server platform using LaGrange processors; both the Barreleye G2 and Zaius chassis use the Zaius POWER9 motherboard


IBM

* ''Power System AC922'' – 2U, 2× POWER9 SMT4 Monza, with up to 6× Nvidia Volta GPUs, 2× CAPI 2.0 attached accelerators and 1 TiB DDR4 RAM. AC here is an abbreviation for Accelerated Computing; this system is also known as "Witherspoon" or "Newell".How you can Boost Acceleration with OpenCAPI, Today!
/ref> * ''Power System L922'' – 2U, 1–2× POWER9 SMT8, 8–12 cores per processor, up to 4 TiB DDR4 RAM (1 TiB = 1024 GiB), PowerVM running
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
.https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/14/ibm_power9_servers/ Big Blue levels up server sextet with POWER9 for IBM i, AIX, HANA, Linuxhttps://www.nextplatform.com/2018/02/15/ins-outs-ibms-power9-zz-systems/ The Ins And Outs Of IBM’s Power9 ZZ Systems * ''Power System S914'' – 4U, 1× POWER9 SMT8, 4–8 cores, up to 1 TiB DDR4 RAM, PowerVM running AIX/
IBM i IBM i (the ''i'' standing for ''integrated'') is an operating system developed by IBM for IBM Power Systems. It was originally released in 1988 as OS/400, as the sole operating system of the IBM AS/400 line of systems. It was renamed to i5/OS in 2 ...
/Linux. * ''Power System S922'' – 2U, 1–2× POWER9 SMT8, 4–11 cores per processor, up to 4 TiB DDR4 RAM, PowerVM running AIX/IBM i/Linux. * ''Power System S924'' – 4U, 2× POWER9 SMT8, 8–12 cores per processor, up to 4 TiB DDR4 RAM, PowerVM running AIX/IBM i/Linux. * ''Power System H922'' – 2U, 1–2× POWER9 SMT8, 4–10 cores per processor, up to 4 TiB DDR4 RAM, PowerVM running SAP HANA (on Linux) with AIX/IBM i on up to 25% of the system. * ''Power System H924'' – 4U, 2× POWER9 SMT8, 8–12 cores per processor, up to 4 TiB DDR4 RAM, PowerVM running SAP HANA (on Linux) with AIX/IBM i on up to 25% of the system. * ''Power System E950'' – 4U, 2–4× POWER9 SMT8, 8–12 cores per processor, up to 16 TiB buffered DDR4 RAM * ''Power System E980'' – 1–4× 4U, 4–16× POWER9 SMT8, 8–12 cores per processor, up to 64 TiB buffered DDR4 RAM * ''Hardware Management Console 7063-CR2'' – 1U, 1× POWER9 SMT8, 6 cores, 64-128 GB DDR4 RAM.


Penguin Computing

* ''Magna PE2112GTX'' – 2U, two-socket server for high performance computing using LaGrange processors. Manufactured by Wistron.


IBM supercomputers

* ''Summit'' and ''Sierra'' The
United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...
together with
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...
and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now i ...
contracted IBM and
Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...
to build two supercomputers, the ''Summit'' and the ''Sierra'', are based on POWER9 processors coupled with Nvidia's Volta GPUs. These systems are slated to go online in 2017.NVIDIA Volta, IBM POWER9 Land Contracts For New US Government Supercomputers
/ref> Sierra is based on IBM's Power Systems AC922 compute node. The first racks of Summit were delivered to Oak Ridge National Laboratory on 31 July 2017. * ''MareNostrum 4'' – One of the three clusters in the emerging technologies block of the fourth MareNostrum supercomputer is a POWER9 cluster with Nvidia Volta GPUs. This cluster is expected to provide more than 1.5 petaflops of computing capacity when installed. The emerging technologies block of the MareNostrum 4 exists to test if new developments might be "suitable for future versions of MareNostrum".


Operating system support

As with its predecessor, POWER9 is supported by
FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...
,
IBM AIX AIX (pronounced ) is a series of Proprietary software, proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM since 1986. The name stands for "Advanced Interactive eXecutive". Current versions are designed to work with Power ISA based ...
,
IBM i IBM i (the ''i'' standing for ''integrated'') is an operating system developed by IBM for IBM Power Systems. It was originally released in 1988 as OS/400, as the sole operating system of the IBM AS/400 line of systems. It was renamed to i5/OS in 2 ...
,
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
(both running with and without PowerVM), and
OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...
. Implementation of POWER9 support in the
Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...
began with version 4.6 in March 2016.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial Linux distribution developed by Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version for x86-64. Fedora Linux and ...
(RHEL), SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLES), Debian Linux,
Ubuntu Linux Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical and a community of contributors under a meritocratic governance model, Ubuntu is released ...
, and
CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a discontinued Linux distribution that provided a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream (softw ...
are supported . The GNU Guix package manager also supports POWER9, but however support for the Guix System Distribution is in Technology Preview.


See also

*
IBM Power microprocessors Power microprocessors (originally POWER prior to Power10) are designed and sold by IBM for Server (computing), servers and supercomputers. The name "POWER" was originally presented as an acronym for "Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC ...
* OpenBMC


References

{{Reflist


External links


IBM Power9

IBM Portal for OpenPOWER
Computer-related introductions in 2017 IBM microprocessors OpenPower IP cores Parallel computing Power microprocessors Transactional memory 64-bit microprocessors