SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Xilinx Developer
Forum (XDF) – Enabling a new era of rapid innovation for
any application by any developer, Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) CEO
Victor Peng unveiled Versal™ – the
industry's first adaptive compute acceleration platform (ACAP).
Versal ACAPs combine Scalar Processing Engines, Adaptable Hardware
Engines, and Intelligent Engines with leading-edge memory and
interfacing technologies to deliver powerful heterogeneous
acceleration for any application. But most importantly, the Versal
ACAP's hardware and software can be programmed and optimized by
software developers, data scientists, and hardware developers
alike, enabled by a host of tools, software, libraries, IP,
middleware, and frameworks that enable industry-standard design
flows.
Built on TSMC's 7-nanometer FinFET process technology, the
Versal portfolio is the first platform to combine software
programmability with domain-specific hardware acceleration and the
adaptability necessary to keep pace with today's rapid pace of
innovation. The portfolio includes six series of devices uniquely
architected to deliver scalability and AI inference capabilities
for a host of applications across different markets, from cloud to
networking to wireless communications to edge computing and
endpoints.
"With the explosion of AI and big data and the decline of
Moore's Law, the industry has reached a critical inflection point.
Silicon design cycles can no longer keep up with the pace of
innovation," says Peng. "Four years in development, Versal is the
industry's first ACAP. We uniquely designed it to enable all types
of developers to accelerate their whole application with optimized
hardware and software and to instantly adapt both to keep
pace with rapidly evolving technology. It is exactly what the
industry needs at the exact moment it needs it."
The portfolio includes the Versal Prime series, Premium series
and HBM series, which are designed to deliver industry-leading
performance, connectivity, bandwidth, and integration for the most
demanding applications. It also includes the AI Core series, AI
Edge series, and AI RF series, which feature the breakthrough AI
Engine. The AI Engine is a new hardware block designed to address
the emerging need for low-latency AI inference for a wide variety
of applications and also supports advanced DSP implementations for
applications like wireless and radar. It is tightly coupled with
the Versal Adaptable Hardware Engines to enable whole application
acceleration, meaning that both the hardware and software can be
tuned to ensure maximum performance and efficiency.
The portfolio debuts with the Versal Prime series, delivering
broad applicability across multiple markets, and the Versal AI Core
series, delivering an estimated 8X AI inference performance boost
versus industry-leading GPUs*.
THE VERSAL AI CORE SERIES
The Versal AI Core series delivers the portfolio's highest
compute and lowest latency, enabling breakthrough AI inference
throughput and performance. The series is optimized for cloud,
networking, and autonomous technology, offering the highest range
of AI and workload acceleration available in the industry. The
Versal AI Core series has five devices, offering 128 to 400 AI
Engines. The series includes dual-core Arm Cortex™-A72 application
processors, dual-core Arm Cortex-R5 real-time processors, 256KB of
on-chip memory with ECC, more than 1,900 DSP engines optimized for
high-precision floating point with low latency. It also
incorporates more than 1.9 million system logic cells combined with
more than 130Mb of UltraRAM, up to 34Mb of block RAM, and 28Mb of
distributed RAM and 32Mb of new Accelerator RAM blocks, which can
be directly accessed from any engine and is unique to the Versal AI
series' – all to support custom memory hierarchies. The series also
includes PCIe Gen4 8-lane and 16-lane, and CCIX host interfaces,
power-optimized 32G SerDes, up to 4 integrated DDR4 memory
controllers, up to 4 multi-rate Ethernet MACs, 650 high-performance
I/Os for MIPI D-PHY, NAND, storage-class memory interfacing and
LVDS, plus 78 multiplexed I/Os to connect external components and
more than 40 HD I/Os for 3.3V interfacing. All of this is
interconnected by a state-of-the-art network-on-chip (NoC) with up
to 28 master/slave ports, delivering multi-terabit per-second
bandwidth at low latency combined with power efficiency and native
software programmability. The full product table is now
available.
THE VERSAL PRIME SERIES
The Versal Prime series is designed for broad applicability
across multiple markets and is optimized for connectivity and
in-line acceleration of a diverse set of workloads. This mid-range
series is made up of nine devices, each including dual-core Arm®
Cortex-A72 application processors, dual-core Arm Cortex-R5
real-time processors, 256KB of on-chip memory with ECC, more than
4,000 DSP engines optimized for high-precision floating point with
low latency. It also incorporates more than 2 million system logic
cells combined with more than 200Mb of UltraRAM, greater than 90Mb
of block RAM, and 30Mb of distributed RAM to support custom memory
hierarchies. The series also includes PCIe® Gen4 8-lane and
16-lane, and CCIX host interfaces, power-optimized 32
gigabits-per-second SerDes and mainstream 58 gigabits-per-second
PAM4 SerDes, up to 6 integrated DDR4 memory controllers, up to 4
multi-rate Ethernet MACs, 700 high-performance I/Os for MIPI D-PHY,
NAND, and storage-class memory interfaces and LVDS, plus 78
multiplexed I/Os to connect external components, and greater than
40 HD I/O for 3.3V interfacing. All of this is interconnected by a
state-of-the-art network-on-chip (NoC) with up to 28 master/slave
ports, delivering multi-terabits per-second bandwidth at low
latency combined with power efficiency and native software
programmability. The full product table is available now.
VERSAL TOOLS AND SOFTWARE
The Versal portfolio is enabled by a development environment
with a comprehensive software stack including drivers, middleware,
libraries and software framework support. More details on the
software programming tools will be made available next
year.
Availability
Xilinx is currently engaged with
multiple key customers through its early access program. The Versal
Prime series and Versal AI Core series will be generally available
in the second half of 2019.
Visit our website for more information on Versal, the AI Engine,
the Versal Prime series and the Versal AI Core series. For more
information on Xilinx and its breakthrough technologies, please
visit www.xilinx.com. Follow Xilinx
on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
About Xilinx
Xilinx develops highly flexible and
adaptive processing platforms that enable rapid innovation across a
variety of technologies—from the endpoint to the edge to the cloud.
Xilinx is the inventor of the FPGA, hardware programmable SoCs, and
the ACAP, designed to deliver the most dynamic processor technology
in the industry and enable the adaptable, intelligent, and
connected world of the future. For more information,
visit www.xilinx.com.
*Sub-2ms Latency CNN performance vs. Tesla V100
©Copyright 2018 Xilinx, Inc. Xilinx, the Xilinx logo, Versal,
and other designated brands included herein are trademarks of
Xilinx in the United States and other countries. Arm and Cortex are
trademarks of Arm Limited in the EU and other countries. PCI
is a trademark of PCI-SIG and used under license. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
PR Contact:
Xilinx
Tara Sims
media@xilinx.com
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/xilinx-unveils-versal-the-first-in-a-new-category-of-platforms-delivering-rapid-innovation-with-software-programmability-and-scalable-ai-inference-300721588.html
SOURCE Xilinx, Inc.