Foundation President Dr. John Glossner was interviewed recently on Embedded Computing Design’s “Five Minutes With..” podcast. Please click here to listen to the segment.
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HSA Foundation Announces New Developments in Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) from Northeastern University
BOSTON, MA – Oct. 18, 2016 – The HSA Foundation has expanded its Academic Partnership Program with the addition of Northeastern University as the first HSA Academic Center of Excellence. The HSA Foundation will be expanding the program by driving innovation in heterogeneous processing to help usher in the next evolution in computing.
HSA is gaining increasing traction, noted HSA Foundation President Dr. John Glossner, with recently announced HSA compliant products, the launch earlier this year of the HSA 1.1 specification, and other key developments.
“The HSA Foundation is now developing relationships with key research universities worldwide that are looking to work on the next evolution in computing both in hardware and software,” said Glossner. “HSA Academic Centers of Excellence will be exploring a wide range of HSA related areas across computer graphics, computer vision, computational photography, programming language and model research, and more.”
Glossner added that research universities are key to driving forward the industry’s understanding of the challenges and possibilities in heterogeneous computing.
The Northeastern University Computer Architecture Research (NUCAR) Laboratory, led by Prof. David Kaeli, has recently released HeteroMark, the first set of benchmark applications developed to evaluate HSA systems. In addition to this contribution to the open source community, the NUCAR team has also introduced Multi2sim-HSA, the first architectural simulator that supports HSA execution. This new simulator has been integrated in the Multi2sim 5.0 framework (www.multi2sim.org), an open source heterogeneous simulation infrastructure used by hundreds of international researchers.
“It is a pleasure for us to work collaboratively with the HSA Foundation members. We are already seeing that our tools and workloads are being leveraged by both industry and academia, enabling them to explore the many benefits of this new computing model,” said Kaeli.
“The work on HeteroMark by Northeastern University is creating an excellent architecture- and API-neutral test suite for common data parallel workloads using modern heterogeneous architecture features,” said AMD Fellow Paul Blinzer. “It allows analysis of GPU and CPU contributions to traditional and collaborative compute patterns with either GPU or CPU as a producer and consumer of data, and provides a good point of comparison with traditional systems designs, clearly demonstrating the benefits of modern heterogeneous systems features defined by the HSA specifications and, for example, implemented via AMD’s ROCm infrastructure.”
Blinzer added that “Multi2sim is a popular system simulation tool in academic research. Integration of HSA system features allows researchers to better understand and analyze modern platform features available on heterogeneous platforms based on HSA technologies.”
To learn more about engaging with the HSA Foundation on academic programs, contact academic@hsafoundation.com.
About Northeastern University
Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a global, experiential, research university built on a tradition of engagement with the world, creating a distinctive approach to education and research. The university offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate programs leading to degrees through the doctorate in nine colleges and schools, and select advanced degrees at graduate campuses in Charlotte, North Carolina, Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Toronto.
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
HSA FOUNDATION INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS POLICY
HSA FOUNDATION INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (“IP”) RIGHTS POLICY
1. Definitions. All capitalized terms that are not otherwise defined in this Intellectual Property Rights Policy (“IPRP”) shall have the meaning defined in the Membership Agreement attached hereto.
1.1 “Encumbered Technology” means technology covered by certain patent claims with respect to which a patent holder is unwilling to grant the Reciprocal License.
1.2 “Final Draft Specification(s)” means a final Draft Specification(s) produced by an HSA Foundation working group or committee that will be forwarded to the Board for Ratification and, upon the discretion of the Board, subsequent public release.
1.3 “IP Disclosure Certificate” means a written Notice delivered to the Board of Directors and the chair of any affected working groups or committees that identifies specific Necessary Patent Claims together with a statement as to whether those Necessary Patent Claims will be licensed to all Members in accordance with the Member Agreement. An IP Disclosure Certificate must identify in writing: (a) the patent holder(s); (b) for each issued patent and published patent application containing a Necessary Patent Claim, and the patent number or publication number, respectively; (c) for a pending unpublished patent application containing a Necessary Patent Claim, and a general description of the technology covered by the application; and (d) reasonable identification of the specific parts of Draft Specification(s) whose implementation may be covered by the Necessary Patent Claims. The IP Disclosure Certificate must contain reasonably sufficient detail so as to enable the HSA Foundation and Members either to exclude the subject inventions from a Draft Specification(s) or to develop a commercially reasonable non-infringing implementation if the corresponding Necessary Patent Claims are not to be licensed under the Member Agreement. An IP Disclosure Certificate may be accompanied by submitting any of the following, in the Member’s sole discretion: (i) Specific License Terms for any Necessary Patent Claims not to be licensed; or (ii) any relevant patent applications in their entirety, including amended and newly added claims, as well as the effective filing date.
1.4 “HSA Foundation Representative” means any employee or contractor of a Member who attends at least one (1) HSA Foundation working group meeting or is otherwise substantially involved in the development of any Draft Specification(s) within the relevant HSA Foundation working group.
1.5 “Managing Director” means the Managing Director of the HSA Foundation.
1.6 “Member” means any Member of the HSA Foundation.
1.7 “Membership Agreement” means the agreement signed by a Member to join the HSA Foundation and to which this Attachment A is attached and incorporated by reference.
1.8 “Notice” means a written notice as defined by the HSA Foundation Membership Agreement.
1.9 “Ratification” means the Board approving a Final Draft Specification(s) for public release as provided in the Bylaws.
1.10 “Reciprocal License” means the license under any Necessary Patent Claims in accordance with the license terms and conditions set forth in the Members’ Member Agreement.
1.11 “Specific License Terms” means a minimal set of terms and conditions that a license must address in order for the HSA Foundation to consider incorporating Encumbered Technology into a Specification(s), provided that the Board has no obligation to accept such license even if it includes all of the Specific License Terms and may withhold such acceptance at its sole discretion. The minimal set of terms and conditions shall include: price (fees and royalties), geographical scope, revocability, whether license is perpetual, definition of licensed patents, scope of license including any restrictions, sublicense conditions (if any), term of license agreement, termination conditions, whether licensor can defensively terminate or suspend license upon suit against them by licensees, and reciprocity. Notwithstanding any of the foregoing, however, in all instances the Specific License Terms shall otherwise be under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions.
2. Disclosure of Necessary Patent Claims
2.1. HSA Foundation Responsibility. The HSA Foundation shall not be responsible for identifying patent rights for which a license may be required, or for conducting inquiries into the legal validity or scope of those patents that are brought to its attention.
2.2. No Member Disclosure Necessary. A Member is not required to disclose a Necessary Patent Claim if the Member commits to license such Necessary Patent Claim according to the terms and conditions of the Reciprocal License.
2.3. IP Disclosure Certificates for Draft Specification(s). If any HSA Foundation Representative of a Member organization has actual knowledge of claims that may be Necessary Patent Claims owned or controlled by that Member with respect to that Member’s Contributions or any other aspect of a Draft Specification(s) that will not be licensed under the Reciprocal License, the HSA Foundation Representative of such Member must submit an IP Disclosure Certificate with the submission of a Contribution or as soon as is reasonably possible. In satisfying the disclosure obligation set forth herein, Members are not required to conduct searches of their patent portfolios, nor are they required to disclose Necessary Patent Claims of other Members or other third party patents. Each Member shall ensure its HSA Foundation Representative understands the foregoing obligation and shall be responsible for the actions and omissions of its HSA Foundation Representative.
2.4. Procedure for IP Disclosure Certificates. The HSA Foundation shall post all received IP Disclosure Certificates on a HSA Foundation website, which is accessible only by Members, promptly after receipt and send an email notification to the Board and all Members.
2.5. IP Disclosure Binding If a Member proposes Specific License Terms in the IP Disclosure Certificate that are subsequently accepted by the HSA Foundation, and are required by the Final Draft Specification(s), then the Member is irrevocably required to grant a license under such Specific License Terms or under terms and conditions that are materially similar to or better than such Specific License Terms for the Necessary Patent Claims.
2.6. Confidentiality of IP Disclosure Certificates. Prior to the date on which a Specification(s) relating to an IP Disclosure Certificate is made public, Members and the HSA Foundation shall not make public the content of any Member’s IP Disclosure Certificate outside of the HSA Foundation. IP Disclosure Certificates received with respect to a particular Draft Specification(s) shall be made public after such Draft Specification(s) has been ratified by the Board.
2.7. Termination of Disclosure Obligations. The disclosure obligations described in this Section 2 for a Draft Specification(s) terminate upon Ratification of the Draft Specification(s) by the HSA Foundation or when a working group or the HSA Foundation formally indicates in writing that work on the Draft Specification(s) has terminated without Ratification by the HSA Foundation.
2.8. No Notice. Each Member agrees that receipt of IP Disclosure Certificates by any Member shall not be deemed to be notice of any patent listed therein for purposes of damages or willfulness.
3. Ratification Periods.
3.1. Notice of Ratification Period. Promptly upon a working group’s or committee’s issuance of a Final Draft Specification(s), the working group chair shall request that the Board issue a Notice of Ratification Period to all Members notifying that an announced period of time not shorter than fourteen (14) days and not to exceed sixty (60) days (the “Ratification Period”) has commenced. The Notice of Ratification Period shall clearly indicate the location of the Final Draft Specification(s) on the HSA Foundation web-site and the deadline for the receipt of any IP Disclosure Certificates from any Member. At the end of the Ratification Period, the Board will vote for Ratification of the Final Draft or establish an IP Committee as defined below.
3.2. Failure to Submit IP Disclosure Certificate. If a Member fails to submit an IP Disclosure Certificate prior to the expiration of an applicable Ratification Period, the Member shall be deemed to have granted the Reciprocal License for that Final Draft Specification(s).
4. Reciprocal License Certificate. At any time during the creation of a Draft Specification(s) or during the Ratification Period for a Final Draft Specification(s), any Member may choose to issue an IP Disclosure Certificate accompanied by a signed certificate (“Reciprocal License Certificate”) certifying Member’s grant of the Reciprocal License for disclosed Necessary Patent Claims for, or expected to be for, a Final Draft. A Reciprocal License Certificate may be accompanied by, in the Member’s sole discretion, the results of any searches conducted by the Member of the Member’s IP, or any publicly available prior art. As an example, a Member may choose to issue a Reciprocal License Certificate for a Contribution that it wishes to see incorporated into a Draft Specification(s) to assist the working group in deciding whether to incorporate that Contribution, but is not required to do so.
5. Existing Specification(s).
5.1. New Member Reciprocal License Grant. By signing and submitting a Membership Agreement, a new Member agrees to grant a Reciprocal License for all Specification(s) as of the joining date of the Member, unless, within sixty (60) days of the submission of the Agreement, the Member submits IP Disclosure Certificates as set forth herein.
5.2. Member Patent Purchase. An existing Member purchasing a patent agrees to grant the Reciprocal License for all Specification(s), unless, within sixty (60) days after purchase of the patent the Member submits an IP Disclosure Certificate as set forth herein, which excludes the obligation to grant a Reciprocal License for the patent. After such period any non-excluded Necessary Patent Claims that shall be deemed to be licensed under the Reciprocal License.
6. Member Initiated Disclosure Request.
6.1. Member Request. A Member may, in good faith, request in writing that the Managing Director issue a written request from the Board delivered to another Member requesting that the other Member issue an IP Disclosure Certificate for specific patent or patents owned or controlled by that Member relevant to a Draft Specification(s) being discussed in a working group (“Disclosure Request”). For clarification, the Disclosure Request must specifically identify the respective patent or patents by providing the corresponding patent numbers. Further, the number of patents included in any Disclosure Request must be reasonable, and the Board shall act in good faith when issuing any particular Disclosure Request or combination of Disclosure Requests. A Disclosure Request is subject to approval by the Board. If approved, the Disclosure Request shall be sent as a Notice by the Managing Director on behalf of the HSA Foundation to the applicable Member and shall include the HSA Foundation’ reasons for making the request, the Draft Specification(s) in question, and any relevant meeting minutes and other documents.
6.2. IP Disclosure Certificate in Response to a Disclosure Request. Any HSA Foundation Representative in a Member organization who has received from the Managing Director a Disclosure Request with respect to a Draft Specification(s), or any person in a Member organization who has received, either directly or indirectly, a Disclosure Request from a HSA Foundation Representative of that Member organization; and who has actual knowledge of claims included in the patent or patents specifically identified in the Disclosure Request that are Necessary Patent Claims of that Member organization must issue an IP Disclosure Certificate in accordance with this policy as soon as reasonably possible after receipt of a Disclosure Request.
6.3. Failure to Comply to a Disclosure Request. A Member who does not comply with the disclosure obligations set forth in this section automatically grants the Reciprocal License for any Necessary Patent Claim(s) that the Member failed to disclose. Any attempt to exclude any such undisclosed Necessary Patent Claim(s) is ineffective and null and void.
7. Withdrawal.
7.1. No Withdrawal. Contributions, once accepted by the HSA Foundation, may not be withdrawn and a Reciprocal License granted thereto. For clarification and as more clearly set forth in the definition of “Contribution,” a submission that is withdrawn from the Working Group within ten (10) business days of said initial submission shall not be deemed a “Contribution.”
7.2. Survival of License. A Member’s obligations to license made prior to withdrawal from the HSA Foundation shall survive such withdrawal, and shall extend to all licensees, including Members that join the HSA Foundation after the withdrawing Member’s withdrawal.
7.3. Exclusion upon Withdrawal. If a Member withdraws from the HSA Foundation prior to the expiration of an applicable Ratification Period, then the Member may exclude patents that the Member is not already obligated to license before the expiration of an applicable Ratification Period. Failure to exclude will result in the former Member granting the Reciprocal License. Upon withdrawal from the HSA Foundation, the Member may submit at any time any and all IP Disclosure Certificates that the Member chooses to submit pursuant to the foregoing clause of this Section 7, without the obligation to wait until a Ratification Period is defined by the HSA Foundation with respect to any particular Draft Specification(s).
7.4. Rights after Withdrawal. Except as explicitly described in this Attachment A, a prior Member shall have no other obligations to the HSA Foundation or to Members as to technologies or IP rights developed by the Member after its withdrawal from the HSA Foundation.
8. Third Party Technology. Nothing in the Membership Agreement shall compel nor prevent the HSA Foundation from including in Draft Specification(s) or Specification(s) a reference to, or suggestion to adopt or employ, a non-Member technology, whether or not such third party technology must be licensed on a royalty-bearing or royalty-free basis in order to avoid infringement or intellectual and/or proprietary rights, provided that said non-Member technology shall not be required to implement the Specification if it is not licensed on a royalty-free basis.
First Heterogeneous System Architecture 2016 Global Summit Kicked Off Today in Beijing, China
BEIJING, Aug. 22, 2016 – The highly anticipated Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) 2016 Global Summit kicked off today here in Beijing. The two-day event (Aug. 22-23) is co-sponsored by the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation and the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) and is drawing standing room only audiences at the Beijing Yizhuang Fengda International Hotel.
Dozens of influential IP suppliers, processor design companies, tools vendors, software vendors and operating system companies in China’s processor-related industrial chain are participating in the Summit, together with numerous mobile manufacturers, unmanned aerial vehicles and robotics application developers, universities and research institutes, and investment institutions.
The HSA summit is also supported by the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone (E-Town), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China (MIIT), and Cyberspace Administration of China.
The HSA Summit is discussing topics surrounding heterogeneous system architecture, including various HSA applications in Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Software Defined Radio, Internet-of-Things, and more.
Supporting Quotes
“We’re excited to be hosting the first HSA 2016 Global Summit here in Beijing. A few months ago we released the HSA 1.1 specification that greatly enhances the ability to integrate open and proprietary IP blocks in heterogeneous designs. We’re now seeing an array of HSA compliant solutions entering the market and during the summit HSA member companies will be presenting further technical details and demonstrating HSA compatible systems.”
- Dr. John Glossner, President, HSA Foundation
“HSA is now allowing developers not only in China – but worldwide – to efficiently apply hardware resources – from CPUs to GPUs, DSPs to FPGAs – in today’s complex systems-on-chip (SoC). We’re seeing developments across numerous applications, some of which include mobile devices, Internet of Things (IoT), HPC, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and much more. The HSA ecosystem is also growing rapidly in China and we look forward to further collaborative endeavors with our colleagues here. We are also thankful for AMD’s continued investment in HSA technologies and its open source efforts via the ROCm platform that bring rich HSA-enabled drivers, runtimes, compiler and tools to the global developer community.”
- Greg Stoner, Chairman and Managing Director, HSA Foundation
“Today the market demand for high-performance parallel computing is exploding in the fields of Machine Vision, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, AR / VR, Software Defined Radio, and more. All of these systems are heterogeneous systems. HSA facilitates programming of these systems by enabling GPUs, DSPs and other accelerators to execute computationally expensive workloads in a complex SoC more effectively and efficiently than a CPU. We are very delighted that this event brought attention to a wide range of attendees including chip designers, hardware and software developers, programmers, and even system integrators. These companies will play a key role in building the HSA ecosystem.”
- Kerry Li, CEO, HuaXia General Processor Technologies
“Heterogeneous processing represents the future of computing across a wide range of applications. At Imagination, our IP is already used extensively in heterogeneous SoCs. We are focused on making it as easy as possible for customers and developers to create and program next-generation SoCs which will be increasingly complex, and will undoubtedly use IP from multiple vendors. We are delighted to join with other industry experts at this first HSA Summit to discuss the critical issues surrounding the future of processing.”
- James Liu, VP and General Manager China, Imagination Technologies
“As the market leader in mobile and home entertainment SOC products, MediaTek continues to deliver superior performance with high energy efficiency that provides exceptional user experiences through cutting-edge heterogeneous computing technologies such as Tri-cluster, deca-core architecture, Deep Learning initiatives and advanced multimedia features. We applaud the HSA Foundation’s efforts to further grow the ecosystem in China, and we wish the HSA 2016 Global Summit a great success.”
- Ryan Chen, General Manager of Computing System Engineering, MediaTek
“As a sponsor member of HSA Foundation, AMD is committed to supporting an open ecosystem where developers can choose freely. As a feature-rich open-source software platform, ROCm helps to realize optimization in super-large-scale multi-GPU computing, and support a more inclusive software engineering community, so as to provide developers with an optimal and simple programming environment. We hope to promote more academic research and business innovation in open-source architecture. We also hope to utilize the open-source architecture to develop more user interfaces and tools together with our partners.”
- Allen Lee, Corporate Vice President of Engineering and General Manager, China R&D Center, AMD
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
HSA Foundation Joins with China Semiconductor Industry Association to Hold the First Heterogeneous System Architecture Global Summit
BEAVERTON, OR, Aug. 9, 2016 – The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is joining with the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) to host the HSA 2016 Global Summit, Aug. 22-23 in Beijing. AMD, Huaxia General Processor Technologies, Imagination Technologies, LG, and MediaTek are co-organizers of the event, which will focus on the future of heterogeneous processing technology in electronics systems across a broad array of applications.
At the Summit, HSA Foundation President Dr. John Glossner will outline recent Foundation developments. Allen Lee, corporate vice president, AMD, will present product updates. HSA member companies will present further technical details and demonstrate HSA compatible systems. A range of industry experts, government officials and academics will discuss recent developments and deliver their visions of the future of heterogeneous processing – focused on topics including:
- Development of heterogeneous computing and the HSA ecosystem in China
- China’s domestic processor development
- Multi-core chips and architectures
- Design trends and challenges
- Tools, software and operating systems
- Developments across applications including software defined radio, mobile devices, Internet of Things (IoT), high-precision satellite navigation and positioning, high-performance computing for smart grid and 5G, intelligent unmanned vehicles, cloud computing, tensor computing, artificial intelligence, deep learning and more
HSA is a standardized platform design supported by more than 40 technology companies and 17 universities that unlocks the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in most modern electronic devices. It allows developers to easily and efficiently apply the hardware resources—including CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, FPGAs, fabrics and fixed function accelerators—in today’s complex systems-on-chip (SoCs).
The HSA Summit will be held at the Beijing Yizhuang Fengda International Hotel on August 22-23, 2016. The HSA Summit is supported by the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone (E-Town), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China (MIIT), Cyberspace Administration of China, and the Government of Beijing Municipality. Mr. Sheng Lian, Beijing E-Town’s director of the administrative committee, will chair the summit.
For more information, including a full list of speakers and supporting organizations please visit:. http://www.hsafoundation.com/chinasummit/.
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Contact:
Neal Leavitt
Leavitt Communications
(760) 639-2900
neal@leavcom.com
Heterogeneous Systems Architecture Foundation Launches HSA 1.1 Specification with Multi-Vendor Architecture Support
Next Big Step Toward Pervasive, Energy-Efficient Heterogeneous Computing
Beaverton, Oregon, May 31, 2016 – The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation today released the HSA 1.1 specification, significantly enhancing the ability to integrate open and proprietary IP blocks in heterogeneous designs. The new specification is the first to define the interfaces that enable IP blocks from different vendors to communicate, interoperate and collectively compose an HSA system.
HSA is a standardized platform design supported by more than 40 technology companies and 17 universities that unlocks the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in most modern electronic devices. It allows developers to easily and efficiently apply the hardware resources—including CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, FPGAs, fabrics and fixed function accelerators—in today’s complex systems-on-chip (SoCs).
With the introduction of multi-vendor architecture support and a range of other functional enhancements, HSA specification 1.1 advances the Foundation’s goal of bringing true heterogeneous computing to platforms including vision based IoT systems, mobile devices, desktops, high-performance computing (HPC) systems, AR/VR environments, and servers.
“HSA is increasing traction, with HSA compliant systems now in the market, an increasing number of developer tools available, and now the ability to leverage IP blocks from different vendors,” said HSA Foundation President Dr. John Glossner. “The HSA Foundation’s working groups have worked tremendously hard to bring about this latest specification, helping to usher in the next wave of computing innovation.”
“HSA is well on its way to becoming ubiquitous,” said Jon Peddie, president, JPR Research. “The trend will continue giving us increasingly powerful devices—from desktops to mobile to tablets—running at lower power. New multi-vendor support will enable easier integration of IP blocks from different vendors to help further grow the HSA ecosystem.”
HSA Specification 1.0, introduced in March 2015, marked a major breakthrough by defining a method for delivering highly integrated systems abstracting away specific processor complexities in heterogeneous designs.
In addition to multi-vendor support, key features of the new 1.1 specification include:
• More efficient interoperation: Greatly improved interoperation with graphics, cameras and other image processors, digital signal processors; and more efficient interoperation with non-HSA compliant devices
• A strict, formal definition of the HSA memory model which allows for well-defined language support that is at the forefront of the industry
• Heterogeneous system-level profiling capabilities with support for an architected event/timestamp model and performance evaluation enabling users to access hardware information for profile guided optimizations or analysis of user code in any language
• Quality of Service (QoS) improvements with better defined forward progress requirements
• Several run-time enhancements including the capability to wait on multiple signals
• Non-temporal memory access that allows infrequently used values to be removed from a cache efficiently
• A new open source LLDB-based debugger sponsored by Codeplay supporting kernels compiled using the open source CLOC compiler and the HSA assembler. All are available on the Foundation’s GitHub repository.
• High-level debug information being provided in an updated Finalizer code object
• Finalizer version support for specific application libraries
“Since its inception, HSA has offered and continues to offer a great deal of promise especially as we move into an era that will see many acceleration technologies come to market. This ability to create seamless integration of solutions regardless of the underlying hardware is paramount for the industry success. This release of the HSA specification represents the evolution of this strategy and brings the next set of capabilities needed to progress this vision.” said Patrick Moorhead, who leads market research firm Moor Insights & Strategy. “I anticipate a lot of interesting use cases, as solution providers find it easier to harness the power as these technologies come together.”
Supporting Quotes
AMD
“When AMD initiated the formation of the HSA Foundation in 2012, we joined with the other founding members to establish a new direction in computing. With the release of the 1.1 specification we take another step forward in that journey, delivering a first class programing experience that empowers programmers to leverage heterogeneous systems.”
-Greg Stoner, Senior Director, Radeon Open Compute, HSA Foundation Chairman of the Board
ARM
“ARM became a founding member of the HSA Foundation to ease the path for software developers to harness the benefits of heterogeneous processing. The initial focus of the ARM ecosystem on mobile platforms is now broadening to include emerging applications such as robotics and autonomous vehicles. To support that, ARM’s latest processor IP is designed to meet the new HSA standard.”
– Jem Davies, vice president of technology, media processing group, and fellow at ARM
IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES
“Heterogeneous architectures represent the future of computing across a wide range of applications. At Imagination we are pleased to have played a key role in developing the HSA specifications. The 1.1 spec provides many key new features. Importantly, it enables developers to write software that truly leverages the processing resources in today’s SoCs which invariably contain IP blocks from multiple vendors.”
– Tim Mace, Senior Manager, Business Development, Imagination Technologies
LUXOFT
“HSA Specification 1.1 is a major milestone in bringing heterogeneous compute architectures closer to real-life semiconductor, OEM, and software product developers. Multi-vendor IP interoperability and streamlined memory models are cornerstone components to support further growth of the HSA ecosystem aimed at creating fast and power efficient parallel computing platforms of the future.”
– Alexey Rybakov, Senior Director, Embedded Systems, Luxoft
MEDIATEK
“The release of the 1.1 HSA specification represents an important milestone in advancing the heterogeneous computing technology. The first multi-vendor specification, which defines the interfaces for the IP blocks from different vendors to work together seamlessly, lays the foundation for the ecosystem to further collaborate and grow. MediaTek adopted a leadership role in the creation of this specification, and our future SoCs based on HSA 1.1 will enable increasingly powerful mobile devices for consumers globally.”
– Roy Ju, senior technical director, MediaTek
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing. See: http://www.hsafoundation.com/
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter and Facebook.
Contact:
Neal Leavitt
Leavitt Communications
(760) 639-2900
neal@leavcom.com
HSA Foundation Exhibiting at Embedded Vision Summit
SANTA CLARA, CA–(Marketwired – April 21, 2016) – The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation announced it will take part in the upcoming Embedded Vision Summit on May 2-4 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The event focuses on helping product developers build better products using computer vision, showcasing the latest proven technologies and practical techniques in computer vision and deep learning. Featured keynotes include those from Google’s Jeff Dean and NASA’s Larry Matthies.
WHO:
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation, a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, Operating System Vendors (OSVs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive.
WHAT:
In its booth in the Vision Technology Showcase, representatives of the HSA Foundation will explain how HSA can unlock the performance and power efficiency of parallel computing engines at the heart of embedded vision systems. HSA Foundation Members (AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies, Luxoft and Qualcomm) will be present and participating. AMD representatives will be on hand to show a vision demonstration on a new HSA compliant product by AMD.
WHEN:
The Embedded Vision Summit will be held from Monday, May 2 through Wednesday, May 4, 2016. As part of the Summit, the Vision Technology Showcase will be held:
Monday, May 2, 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Tuesday, May 3, 5:15 PM – 7:30 PM
WHERE:
Vision Technology Showcase booth T5, Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, California
About the HSA Foundation
HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Contact Information
Contact:
Neal Leavitt
Leavitt Communications
(760) 639-2900
neal@leavcom.com
HSA Foundation Announces Results of Innovative Open Source Project
TARRYTOWN, NY, April 7, 2016 – The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation today announced the results of a collaborative project sponsored by General Processor Technologies (GPT) and other industry developers to create open software bridges that enable quicker, easier programming of high-performance parallel computing devices in heterogeneous ecosystems.
The goal of the project was to overcome barriers to open parallel computing presented by proprietary tools that made interoperability historically problematic. This latest project was a key proof-point to achieving that interoperability goal.
HSA Foundation, in conjunction with GPT and Parmance, developed a BRIG (binary format) language front-end to GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) that is a binary representation of HSAIL (HSA Intermediate Language), a virtual instruction set specified by HSA for parallel computing. That front-end, known as gccbrig, was announced at the Linley Processor Conference last fall and is now available at the Foundation’s GitHub site: https://github.com/HSAFoundation/gccbrig.
“We’re delighted to have sponsored the gccbrig project and to be involved in creating a foundational tools ecosystem for HSA,” said Dr. John Glossner, HSA Foundation president and GPT CEO.
Glossner added that the Foundation is also actively assisting software developers by making their parallel compute jobs easier and more accessible; the cost of an efficient HSA-based heterogeneous parallel programming stack is now greatly reduced for all compute platform vendors with GCC backends already available for their devices.
“By defining interfaces for parallel computation using CPUs, GPUs, DSPs and other programmable and fixed function devices while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, we’re creating the foundation for next-generation, high-performance, general-purpose computing,” said Glossner.
“Heterogeneous processors may benefit from kernel agent support and the vector/SIMD (Single Instruction/Multiple Data) optimizations in GCC. gccbrig taps into the years of hard work that have gone into the GNU compiler to provide efficient generic and target-specific optimizations such as auto vectorization. These optimizations help improve the performance portability of HSAIL programs when targeting various popular architectures, such as AMD CPUs with their SIMD instruction set extensions, and several DSP/ISPs,” said primary gccbrig developer Pekka Jääskeläinen, CEO of Parmance.
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter and Facebook.
About GPT
General Processor Technologies (GPT) is the wholly owned subsidiary of Beijing-based Hua Xia GPT. GPT designs and licenses embedded HSA-compatible processors for use world-wide. Best known for building multithreaded vector Digital Signal Processors (DSP) for wireless communications, GPT also licenses cores for use in machine vision, Internet of Things (IoT), Machine-to-Machine (M2M), consumer electronics, and deep learning. GPT’s patent-pending Unity architecture allows customers to optimize cores for a range of applications and easily integrates into heterogeneous systems providing power-efficient computing and software reuse. For more information, please visit www.generalprocessortech.com.
About Parmance
Parmance, based in Tampere, Finland, provides a wide variety of software engineering services – some of these include compiler development, runtime development and performance engineering. The company’s specialists have extensive expertise with heterogeneous parallel computing, processor architectures, instruction-set simulators, and compilers. For more information, log on to www.parmance.com.
Contact:
Neal Leavitt
Leavitt Communications
(760) 639-2900
neal@leavcom.com
HSA Foundation President John Glossner Delivering Keynote at ARCS 2016
NUREMBERG, GERMANY, March 29, 2016 – The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation announced that Foundation President Dr. John Glossner will deliver a keynote address at ARCS 2016 – International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems, being held April 4-7 in Nuremberg, Germany. The focus of the 2016 conference will be on Heterogeneity in Architectures and Systems – from Embedded to HPC.
In his talk, Dr. Glossner will discuss the HSA computing platform infrastructure including features/advantages across computing platforms – from mobile and tablets to desktops to HPC and servers. The talk will also focus on technical issues solved by HSA technologies and important new developments that are bringing the industry closer to broad adoption of heterogeneous computing.
WHO:
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation, a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, Operating System Vendors (OSVs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive
WHAT:
HSA Foundation keynote: “Heterogeneous Systems Era” at ARCS 2016
WHEN:
Thursday, April 7, 9:30 AM (UTC+2)
WHERE:
ARCS 2016: Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg
WHY:
- Learn why we need to bring compute app portability to heterogeneous platforms
- Glean more about the HSA vision – discover how devices, with the eventual adoption of heterogeneous computing, will be able to run applications at much higher performance and lower power
- How HSA adds value to the SoC and the HSA ecosystem
- How end users benefit from HSA
For more information about ARCS 2016, visit: www3.cs.fau.de/arcs2016.
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter.
Contact:
Neal Leavitt
Leavitt Communications
(760) 639-2900
neal@leavcom.com
HSA Foundation President John Glossner Delivering Keynote at WInnComm 2016
RESTON, VA, March 8, 2016 – The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation announced that Foundation President Dr. John Glossner will be delivering a keynote address at the Wireless Innovation Forum Conference on Wireless Communications Technologies and Software Defined Radio (WInnComm 2016), being held March 15-17 in Reston, VA. Dr. Glossner will share important new developments that are bringing the industry closer to broad adoption of heterogeneous computing. He will also elaborate on why HSA will be at the heart of the high performance and low power chipsets that will drive the next wave of wireless innovation.
WHO:
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation, a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, Operating System Vendors (OSVs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive.
WHAT:
HSA Foundation keynote: “Multicore Processors for Heterogeneous Systems Era.”
WHEN:
Wednesday, March 16, 8:40 AM EST
WHERE:
Sheraton Reston, Reston, VA.
WHY:
- Learn why we need to bring compute app portability to heterogeneous platforms
- Glean more about the HSA vision — discover how devices, with the eventual adoption of heterogeneous computing, will be able to run applications at much higher performance and lower power
- How HSA adds value to the SoC and the HSA ecosystem
- How end users benefit from HSA
- What makes the HSA Intermediate Language (HSAIL) so unique
- Get the latest HSA product updates from HSA Foundation member companies
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.