Fixstars is pleased to announce the immediate release of its Geometric Performance Primitives library (GPP), the world’s fastest multi-core geometry engine.
With computational geometry tasks so important and currently established routines so inefficient, the GPP library stands to make dramatic improvements to the EDA and GIS communities. Early testing on parallelized GPU systems shows up to 25 times faster performance than reference CPUs. In addition to advanced parallelism, flexible hardware targeting, and support for boolean operations, snap rounding, and polygon relations, GPP places no artificial limits on data size, performs overlay analysis and geometry-on-geometry checks on all-angle geometry, and allows up to 53-bit coordinates.
GPP is available now. For more information, please visit our web site or contact us.
SALT LAKE CITY, November 12, 2012 -Fixstars Solutions, Inc. is pleased to announce that its image processing demo running on ALTERA’s latest Stratix V FPGA board is showing at Super Computing 2012.
With a port of several image processing routines using ALTERA’s OpenCL tools, Fixstars demonstrates the power and flexibility of its flagship optimization platform, M³, modified to take full advantage of the new Stratix V FPGA board. Combined, Fixstars M³ and ALTERA’s OpenCL dramatically simplify development, maximizing parallelization and minimizing time to market in applications such as medical imaging, inspection devices, surveillance systems, and media encoder/decoder products.
The most exciting international conference for high performance computing, SC gathers the best and brightest minds in supercomputing. Please join Fixstars Solutions at the ALTERA booth, #430 near the main entrance of the Salt Palace Convention Center, to experience the iPad high performance computing demonstration with M³ and the Stratix V FGPA.
For more information, please visit our web site or contact us.
Solution Takes Advantage of Multi-Core Processing and Multi-Node Development Environments to Deliver Speed and Cost Improvements in Rendering Complex Images
SIGGRAPH 2012, Los Angeles, August 7, 2012 — Fixstars Solutions, the leader in multi-core software solutions, today announced it has achieved a 50X speed increase in rendering a massive particle computer graphics (CG) scene by utilizing Fixstars’ “lucille” global illumination renderer and the newest Violin 6616 Flash Memory Array from Violin Memory. The stunning results were accomplished through the combination of lucille’s superior parallel processing performance and the industry’s fastest I/O throughput provided by the Violin 6616.
Particle dynamics are an essential component of high quality CG production, enabling the execution of complex and realistically rendered natural phenomena, such as flames, explosions, smoke, splashes, mist, and hair. However, rendering particles typically requires large data sets and random storage access. In that case, the I/O speed of data storage represents a bottleneck for traditional storage solutions, which are typically composed of numerous hard disk drives (HDDs).
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Violin 6000 series
Violin Memory’s Violin 6616 Flash Memory Array, which is a storage solution configured entirely from Toshiba NAND flash memory, enables faster data read-and-write times compared to traditional HDD storage systems, since it has no moving parts. Fixstars’ tests confirmed that the Violin 6616 yielded 50 times faster processing speeds than traditional HDD based solutions for rendering large data sets. CG companies can replace traditional racks of multiple HDDs with Violin Flash Memory Arrays which can yield significant savings in rendering times computation costs and storage footprint.
Fixstars’ lucille has an enormous speed and compatibility advantages over other ray tracing renderers, since it is highly optimized to take advantage of the inherent advanced performance capabilitiesof multi-core processors and multi-node environments. The particle generation simulations were achieved by making maximum use of 4 nodes with 32 cores of 64 threaded to achieve this level of high speed performance. Similarly, the Violin 6616 provides superior performance in multi-core environments, achieving low overhead and high data rates per CPU cycle. During the simulations, the Violin 6616 sustained lucille’s high computation speed, even when comparing single vs.16 compute threads, confirming Fixstars’ view that the combination of lucille and Violin 6616 represents the perfect solution for rendering large data sets, such as dynamic particle simulations.
Don Basile, CEO of Violin Memory commented, “We are pleased to enable Fixstars set a new performance standard with their “lucille” global illumination renderer application by making the move to Violin Flash Memory Arrays that allow the full power of the application to be realized rather than being held back by legacy disk array technologies.”
“With Toshiba’s NAND flash memory chips powering all Violin Flash Memory Arrays, technology companies are able to take full advantage of the capabilities that solid state storage can deliver,” said George Bouchaya, vice president and chief technology officer at the Institute of Strategic Storage Planning and Investment of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. “Twenty-five years after inventing NAND flash, Toshiba continues to drive flash innovation forward, and it’s exciting to see solutions like the Fixstars/Violin rendering system come to life.”
Scott Frankel, lucille Product Manager at Fixstars Corporation commented, “The Violin Memory’s Violin 6616 represents an enormous step forward in performance data storage. Working hand in hand with the parallel processing capabilities of Fixstars’ lucille global illumination renderer, these two innovative products open the door to new horizons in computer graphics rendering.”
Fixstars is demonstrating the high speed particle rendering at SIGGRAPH 2012, August 7th to 9th in Los Angeles, with Violin Memory and Toshiba, who developed the NAND flash memory embedded in the Violin 6616. To see us at the SIGGRAPH, please visit booth #761. If you have any inquiry or would like to make an appointment, please contact us at the following e-mail address or telephone number,.
UNNATURALLY FAST PROCESSING: OPTIMIZING APPLICATION PERFORMANCE
M³ logo
SUNNYVALE, CA. August 6, 2012 - Although parallel processing was viewed as the solution for high-volume computational applications, the volume of data and demand for real-time output are now posing new problems with complexity of code, portability and energy consumption. Fixstars, a global leader in multi-core software development offers a solution to this dilemma with the North American launch of M³(M-Cubed). This new software development platform reduces development time, and increases processing performance for multi-core, multi-node, multi-architecture environments.
Nagayoshi Kobayashi, ISV Enabling Manager, Intel Japan on the release of M³, “The latest Intel processor has the capability to manage 20 threads in one chip. The M³ platform is a unique approach to improve the processing speed of software working on such many core devices. We are looking forward to future development of M³.”
While parallel processing is the answer to the need for Big Data applications, parallel programming is significantly more difficult than sequential programming, and many applications fall short of taking full advantage of their hardware environments. Satoshi Miki, Chief Executive Office of Fixstars said, “With every release of new hardware to the market, the ability for software developers to quickly respond to and take advantage of hardware innovations has become a key competitive advantage.”
M³ Software Architecture
Since 2002, Fixstars has helped clients dramatically improve computing performance with software development, and optimization of various hardware environments such as NVIDIA / ATI GPU, ARM SoC , and Intel / AMD x86. Fixstars has recognized the need for a platform to help developers focus on building software applications without needing to code for every specific hardware type. The result is M³, offering a highly efficient development process producing highly optimized and portable software applications.
The demand for efficient real-time data processing and Big Data management in fields such as medical image processing, bioinformatics, computer vision, financial model simulations, and computer generated (CG) rendering will continue to grow. Satoshi Miki remarked, “There have been advances in compiler technology, but none have ever been able to meet the needs of our clients. With the release of M-Cubed, I believe that the age of software performance being handcuffed by hardware will soon come to an end.”
Learn more about about M³ at, http://www.fixstars.com/en/m-cubed/
Software-acceleration and parallel processing leaders to deliver services supporting open, portable multi-processor programming framework.
Tokyo, Japan, March 5, 2012- Fixstars Corporation, the leading company in multi-core software solutions, and Codeplay Software Ltd., the expert in high-performance compilers and software optimization for graphics and multi-core processing, today announced a new business partnership to deliver Open Computing Language (OpenCL) software development and consulting services to Japanese firms and research laboratories.
OpenCL is a parallel computing framework for programming heterogeneous systems containing devices such as multi-core processors, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), or Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E™) processors. With its multi-dimensional computation domain, multi-kernel execution and standard language specification, OpenCL is attracting attention as an efficient and portable open technology for software development.
By partnering together, Fixstars and Codeplay will promote adoption of OpenCL among application developer communities as well as semiconductor designers. Using OpenCL-compatible software, middleware and compilers delivered through this partnership, customers will benefit from a high-performance, portable software foundation on which to create competitive new products.
“Fixstars has presence in the Japanese market, and great software expertise, that will help deliver our acceleration technologies to an even larger audience,” said Andrew Richards, CEO and founder of Codeplay. “OpenCL is set to become an extremely important framework enabling developers to achieve a significant performance edge in next-generation product designs.”
“OpenCL is a comprehensive, open framework for heterogeneous parallel processing, and is the result of deep cooperation between industry-leading companies in the OpenCL working group,” added Neil Trevett, vice president mobile content of NVIDIA and president of The Khronos Group, the industry consortium responsible for creating OpenCL and other open compute and graphics standards. “I am delighted to see Codeplay and Fixstars, who are both experienced working group members, combining their expertise to nurture the OpenCL developer community in Japan.”
“I am pleased to be partnering with a company of Codeplay’s standing to help Japan’s developers increase application performance and future-proof new designs using OpenCL.” said Satoshi Miki, CEO and founder of Fixstars. “As multi-core hardware continues to evolve quickly, challenging manufacturers to select a suitable hardware platform for the longer term, the portability of software will become increasingly important and valuable. Working together, I am sure that we will make OpenCL the chosen programming framework for Japanese companies seeking the best possible performance and flexibility.”
About Codeplay
Codeplay are global experts in advanced optimizing technologies, compilers and programmable graphics. The company has been providing acceleration solutions that optimize performance for graphics semiconductor designers and AAA game developers since 1999. In the semiconductor sector, Codeplay partners with leading chip manufacturers, such as AGEIA, Qualcomm and Movidius, helping them to exploit the full potential of their chipsets and accelerate time-to-market. Codeplay’s high performance C/C++ compiler technology enables GPU product managers to bring breakthrough new technologies to their graphics processors, significantly reducing development time, costs and risks. The company’s compiler testing technologies enable the rapid testing of new compilers and languages, such as OpenCL and shader languages. Codeplay’s expert compiler developers bring many years of experience to the toughest optimization and development projects. For more information, visit www.codeplay.com/.
