BlueGene

Abstract -- BlueGene/L is a massively parallel Supercomputer, the largest one containing 65,536 dual processors and over 1/2 a million DRAM chips. It has run sustained scientific applications in excess of 100 Trillion Floating Point Operations per second. Smaller machines are distributed throughout the world, some at leading academic institutions. This talk will discuss the genesis of the BlueGene machine design, and how it evolved from its humble beginning at IBM research to the most powerful computer on the planet as ranked by the Top500 committee. The talk will cover hardware, software, and applications, with a focus on hardware. Biography -- Paul W. Coteus received the  PhD degree in Physics from Columbia University in 1981, then joined the University of Colorado, Boulder where he studied Neutron production of Charmed Baryons as Assistant Professor of  Physics. In 1988 he joined the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center as Research Staff Member. He has managed the Systems Packaging Group since 1994, where he directs and designs advanced packaging and tools for high speed electronics,  including I/O circuits, memory system design, and high performance system packaging. He leads the BlueGene research packaging team, and is the program manager. He is a member of IBM’s Academy of Technology, has authored more than 60 papers in the field of electronic packaging, and holds 41 US patents.