AltiVec Parallel
Vector Technology
Scalable from Two
to Hundreds of
Processors
1K CFFT in 20
µ
s
on Each Processor
125 MHz Memory
System with
Prefetch and ECC
Advanced DMA
Engine for Chained
Submatrix Moves
267 MB/s RACE++
Switch Fabric
Interconnect
Fast L2 Cache
(250 MHz)
Embedded computing
reaches a new level of
performance with
RACE++
®
Series
PowerPC
®
7410 daugh-
tercards from Mercury
Computer Systems.
Each PowerPC 7410
daughtercard contains two
500 MHz MPC7410 microprocessors
with AltiVec™ technology. These unique
microprocessors combine a modern super-
scalar RISC architecture with an AltiVec
parallel vector execution unit.
The AltiVec vector processing unit
revolutionizes the performance of
computationally intensive applications such
as image and signal processing. Each
vector unit can operate in parallel on up to
four floating-point numbers or up to
sixteen 8-bit integers. This dramatically
accelerates vector arithmetic and provides
greater application performance on smaller,
less power-hungry processors.
AltiVec technology also represents a leap
in simplifying the programming required
to achieve high performance. Whereas
previous DSP-based systems required
handcrafted assembly language code for
optimal performance, easy-to-use exten-
sions to the C language provide a direct
mapping to AltiVec instructions. This
permits developers to program more
productively in a higher-level language,
even for critical sections of code.
Optimized Performance
With the huge increase in processing
performance brought by AltiVec, most
applications are no longer CPU-limited.
To keep the processor fed with ample data,
increased emphasis is placed on the
memory system and communications fabric
that delivers data to the processor. Each
compute node on the 500 MHz PowerPC
7410 daughtercard has a dedicated fabric
interface at 267 MB/s and maximum mem-
ory speed of 125 MHz. By maximizing the
performance of the memory and the fabric
interface to the processor, Mercury has
optimized RACE++ compute nodes for
processing continuous streams of data.
AltiVec in RACE++ Computers
The computational power of RACE++
Series systems is built from compute nodes
comprised of processors, memory, and
interfaces to the RACE++ interconnect.
PowerPC 7410 daughtercards each contain
two compute nodes.
Each compute node (CN) consists of an
MPC7410 microprocessor with AltiVec
technology, level 2 (L2) cache, synchronous
DRAM (SDRAM), and a Mercury-designed
ASIC. This CN ASIC contains architectural
advancements that enhance concurrency
between arithmetic and I/O operations.
500 MHz PowerPC
7410 Daughtercard
PowerPC 7410 Daughtercard Architecture
