The Xilinx Alveo U50 are accelerator cards that offer an optimized acceleration for different workloads in data analytics, data search, computational storage, machine learning, and financial computing. Built on the architecture of the Xilinx UltraScale and also package in a small form factor of 75-watt, and also armed with a networking I/O of 100 Gbps, HBM and PCle Gen4. The Xilinx Alveo U50 is specially designed to be deployed in any specific server.
These accelerator cards can adapt to changing algorithm standards, acceleration requirements, and can accelerate any workload excluding the need to change the hardware, as well as reduce the general cost of the ownership.
The enabling of the accelerator cards of Alveo is a Xilinx ecosystem as well as partner applications that serve common workloads for the Data Center. Furthermore, for any custom solution, the Developer Tool Suite of this Xilinx application known as Vitis environment as well as Machine Learning Suite offers a specific framework for the developers in bringing the differentiated applications into the market.
This programmable cable is very necessary for the development access on the cards of the Xilinx Alveo U50. This cable offers micro-USB support through a host PCB into the maintenance connector of the Xilinx Alveo U50.
What are the Features and Benefits of the Xilinx Alveo U50?
Features and benefits of the Xilinx Alveo U50 are:
Powerful acceleration of data center
It is built for efficiency and performance
- Faster performance of the application from HBM 8GB memory as well as PCle Gen4 interconnect
- It also has a low capability for latency network via the 100G networking. Also, it offers support for 1 x 100GbE or 1 x 40GbE, 4 x 25GbE, 4x 10GbE
Optimized Performance throughout different workloads
- Maximized performance of the application as algorithms and workloads evolve via reconfigurable fabric in contrast to the fixed-architecture options
- Accelerates storage, network, compute workloads
Deploy in all servers – on premises and cloud
- It is built for the scale out architecture and all server types – form factor with a low profile and a low power envelope of 75 watt
Strong developer platform
- This takes full advantage of the growing and large Xilinx library, as well as its partner applications
- It develops differentiated solutions by leveraging the Machine learning suite and development environment of Xilinx
Supercharging different data center applications
Financial simulation
- Very fast time to insight
- Deterministic latency which delivers very consistent performance
- Reduction in operational costs as well as maximum power efficiency
Acceleration of the Deep learning interface
- This is ten times higher throughput which includes translated symbols for every second
- Significant improvement of the power efficiency for every node
- 25 times lower latency
Very low latency network
- The latency is 20 times lower
- The throughput timing is deterministic
- It offers a trading time of sub-500ns vs the CPU latency of about 10us
Acceleration of Data Analytics
- Reduction in the operational cost
- Increased cost effectiveness for every node
- High response time and query throughput compared to the CPU
Acceleration of Computational Storage
- The Xilinx Alveo U50 offers very flexible and fast decompression/compression acceleration
- Furthermore, it offers lower cost. The accelerated compression of the Xilinx Alveo U50 delivers a lower cost by 33%
What are the Specifications of the Xilinx Alveo U50?
Board specifications
For board specification, the Xilinx Alveo U50 comes in two different productions, namely the U50 and U50LV. The former is specified by A-U50-P00G-PQ-G, while the latter is denoted by A-U50-P00G-LV-G
Compute resources
For the compute resources, both types of board specifications: U50 and U50LV have the same values for the DSP slices, registers, and the LUTs (look-up tables). For the DSP Slices, they both have a value of 5,952. The registers are 1743k while the Look-up tables are both 872K.
Dimensions
For dimensions, both types of board specifications: U50 and U50LV have the same values for the height, length, and width. They have ½ height, ½ length, while the width is a single slot.
Memory
Also, for the memory, both types of board specifications: U50 and U50LV have the same values for memory, with respect to the memory capacity of the HBM, total bandwidth of HBM, capacity of the internal SRAM.
For the HBM memory capacity, they have a value of 8GB, while the HBM bandwidth in total is 316 Gb per second. Their internal SRAM capacity is 28 mb. However they have different values for the total bandwidth of the internal SRAM. U50 has a value of 24 TB/s while U50LV has a value of 19TB/s.
Physical Interfaces
For the physical interfaces, the both types of board specifications: U50 and U50LV have the same values for network interfaces and clock precision. For clock precision, they both have a value of IEEE 1588, while for the network interfaces, they both have a value of 100GbE (1 x QSFP28).
However, both have a different value for PCI Express. For the U50, it has a value of Gen3x 16,2 x Gen 4x 8, CCIX. The U50LV, on the other hand, has a value of Gen3x 162.
Tool support
Tool support is another important specification. Both types of board specifications have the Vivado Design Suite and the Vitis Developer Environment. For the Vitis Platform, theU50 has the Gen3x16 XDMA, Gen3x4 XDMA3
Thermal and Power
For thermal and power, both types of board specifications: U50 and U50LV have the same values for thermal cooling and maximum total power at passive and 75W respectively. However, they have differing target workloads. For the U50, it works with Database, Video, Fintech, and Computational Storage, while for the U50LV, it works with machine learning interference.
What are the Applications of the Xilinx Alveo U50?
The following are the applications of Xilinx Alveo U50
- Financial computing
- Security
- Genomics
- Video transcoding
- Data analytics
- Machine learning
- Image and video processing
Conclusion
The Xilinx Alveo U50 is specially designed to be deployed in any specific server. These accelerator cards can adapt to changing algorithm standards, acceleration requirements, and can accelerate any workload.
