Specifications

5102ch02.fm Draft Document for Review May 12, 2014 12:46 pm
50 IBM Power System S822 Technical Overview and Introduction
2.5.10 Cryptographic coprocessor
The cryptographic coprocessor card is not available to the Power S822 due to the adapter
size.
2.5.11 FPGA Adapters
The field-programmable gate array (FPGA) adapters are PCIe adapters based on a
semiconductor device that can be programmed.
Unlike an ASIC, which is designed and programmed to perform a single function, an FPGA
can be programmed to execute different product functions, adapt to new standards, and
reconfigure its hardware for specific applications even after the product has been installed in
the field. An FPGA is able to implement any logical function that an application-specific
integrated circuit (ASIC) would perform, but has the ability to have its code update to include
more functions or perform a different role.
Today FPGAs have not only the logic elements, capable of being reprogrammed, but also
include SRAM memory, high-speed interconnects that can range up to 400 Gbps, logic blocks
and routing. This allows for very versatile solutions once a single adapter is able to perform
several distinct functions depending on the code deployed on it.
By having a highly optimized software stack, the FPGAs can act as coprocessor for the server
CPUs, executing repetitive and complex functions at a fraction of the time and power, while
allowing for the server CPUs to perform other functions at the same time.
The FPGA adapter cards supported for the Power S822 can be seen on Table 2-17.
Table 2-17 Available FPGA adapters
The #EJ13 is a low profile FPGA adapter based on Altera Stratix V 28 nm hardware. Besides
all the logic components it has also 8 GB DDR3 RAM.
The initial implementation for the #EJ13 is an adapter capable of performing gzip
compression. The zlib API, a software library responsible for data compression used in
several software, is capable of moving the tasks directly to the FPGA allowing for increased
compression performance, increased compression rates and decreased CPU usage. JAVA
7.1 is already enabled to that take advantage of this kind of acceleration.
5227 57D2 PCIe LP 4-Port Async EIA-232
adapter
5 8 AIX, Linux
5290 57D4 PCIe LP 2-Port Async EIA-232
adapter
5 8 AIX, Linux
Feature
code
CCIN Description Maximum
with one
processor
installed
Maximum
with two
processors
installed
OS support
Feature
code
CCIN Description One
Processor
Two
Processors
OS support
EJ13 PCIe3 LP FPGA
Accelerator Adapter
11AIX