Networked Answer to "Life, The Universe, and Everything"

Abstract

In the last few years, Input/Output (I/O) bandwidth limitation of legacy computer architectures forced us to reconsider where and how to store and compute data across a large range of applications. This shift has been made possible with the concurrent development of both smartNICs and programmable switches with a common programming language (P4), and the advent of attached High Bandwidth Memory within smartNICs/FPGAs. Recently, proposals to use this kind of technology have emerged to tackle computer science related issues such as fast consensus algorithm in the network, network accelerated key-value stores, machine learning, or data-center data aggregation. In this paper, we introduce a novel architecture that leverages these advancements to potentially accelerate and improve the processing of radio-astronomy Digital Signal Processing (DSP), such as correlators or beamformers, at unprecedented continuous rates in what we have called the "Atomic COTS" design. We give an overview of this new type of architecture to accelerate digital signal processing, leveraging programmable switches and HBM capable FPGAs. We also discuss how to handle radio astronomy data streams to pre-process this stream of data for astronomy science products such as pulsar timing and search. Finally, we illustrate, using a proof of concept, how we can process emulated data from the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project to time pulsars.