Fujitsu A64FX
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| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched | 2019 |
| Marketed by | Fujitsu |
| Designed by | Fujitsu |
| Common manufacturer | |
| Physical specifications | |
| Transistors |
|
| Cores | |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Technology node | 7 nm |
| Microarchitecture | In-house |
| Instruction set | ARMv8.2-A with SVE and SBSA level 3 |
| History | |
| Predecessor | SPARC64 XIfx |
The A64FX is a 64-bit ARM architecture microprocessor designed by Fujitsu.[1][4] The processor is replacing the SPARC64 XIfx as Fujitsu's processor for supercomputer applications.[5] It powers the Fugaku supercomputer, the fastest TOP500 supercomputer in the world between the June of both 2020 and 2022, being first surpassed by the Frontier.[6][4][5][7]
The A64FX implements the ARMv8.2-A instruction set, with 512-bit Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) SIMD units.[4] The SVE accepts four operands, one more than typical 3-operand machines; the extra operand is called the instruction prefix.[1] For example, MOVPRFX instruction followed by (ARM, like RISC in general, is a 3-operand machine, with no space for four operands), which get packed into a single operation in the pipeline. For the processor the designer claim ">90% execution efficiency in (D|S|H)GEMM and INT16/8 dot product".[1]
The processor uses 32 gigabytes of HBM2 memory with a bandwidth of 1 TB per second.[4] The processor contains 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes[1] for solid state NVMe storage. The processor also integrates a TofuD fabric controller with 10 ports implemented as 20 lanes of high-speed 28 Gbit/s to connect multiple nodes in a cluster.[1] The reported transistor count is about 8.786 billion.[4][8]
Each A64FX processor has four NUMA nodes, with each NUMA node having 12 compute cores, for a total of 48 cores per processor.[9][2][3] Each NUMA node has its own level 2 cache, HBM2 memory, and assistant cores for non-computational purposes.[9]
Fujitsu intends to produce lower specification machines with reduced assistant cores.[2][3] Reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) capabilities are claimed, i.e. ~128,400 error checkers in total.
In June 2020 the Fugaku supercomputer using this processor reached 442 petaFLOPS and became the fastest supercomputer in the world.
