Project Goals
Making parallel computing easy to use has been described as "a problem as hard as any that computer science has faced". With such a big challenge ahead we need to make sure as many people as possible have access to open parallel hardware and development tools.
Inspired by great hardware communities like Raspberry Pi and Arduino, we also see a critical need for a truly open, high-performance computing platform that will enable us to close the knowledge gap in parallel programming.
The goal of the Parallella project is to democratize access to parallel computing through providing an affordable open hardware platform and open source tools, and supporting learning and the development of software which is able to harness the power of parallel systems.
Overview:
Zynq-7020 Dual-core ARM A9 CPU
16 or 64-core Epiphany Multicore Accelerator
1GB RAM
MicroSD Card
2x USB 2.0
4 general purpose expansion connectors
10/100/1000 Ethernet
HDMI port
Ships with Ubuntu OS
3.4″ x 2.15″ form factor
Once completed, the 66-core version of the Parallella computer would deliver over 90 GFLOPS on a board the size of a credit card while consuming only 5 Watts under typical work loads. For certain applications, this would provide more raw performance than a high end server costing thousands of dollars and consuming 400W.
Read more: Parallella