ABSTRACT:
Today we can see a multitude of accelerator technologies; manycore, FPGAs, GPGPUs, hybrid computers and many other specialized solutions. The breakthrough for these seems to be just around the corner, but the truth is that is has been so for quite a few years now. Even if these technologies draw substantial attraction from the research community, ready to run commercial solutions are still almost non-existent. One of Synective Labs' missions is to change that - but we can't do it alone! How can researchers and companies cooperate to create commercial, useful and interesting solutions? This presentation will survey the current state-of-the-art technologies and bring up suggestions on how to create successful paths to that breakthrough. Accelerator techniques have, for long, been the new kid on the block - now it's time for him to make some friends!
BIO:
Sven Holmquist, the founder of Synective Labs, has more than 25 years of experience in the computer industry. He was the founder of Fervor Data AB in 1976, a company that developed boards and solutions based mainly on the Motorola 6800, and later 68000, family of microprocessors. In 1981, he joined the Volvo Car Company and developed a graphical scheduling system for production. This product provided a breakthrough in the use of computers for interactive scheduling purposes. Holmquist headed a special division within Volvo that further developed this tool into an advanced scheduling system to include not only the automotive industry, but the airline industry, among others. Such customers included Swedish Broadcasting Company (SR), as well as SAS and Lufthansa who used this for aircraft and crew scheduling. The product was called Carmen Systems and in 1989 Volvo sold this company to a private enterprise. This company still exists today as a part of Jeppesen, a Boeing company.
At this time, Mr Holmquist started Binomen AB, a consultancy company specializing in low-level telecom applications. This company was sold to Frontec AB in 2000 and was eventually taken over by Flextronics Design AB. Holmquist stayed on as consultant for Flextronics until June 2003 when he founded Synective Labs. Synective started up focusing on large FPGA cluster solutions and early on turned its interest to HPC solutions. Synective Labs are today, of course, working with both FPGAs and GPGPUs as well as other emerging technologies.
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