Glenn Henry
Founder / President Emeritus
Centaur Technology

This talk will explore Centaur's microprocessor-design technology includes both a new high-performance x86 core AND the industry's FIRST integrated AI Coprocessor for x86 systems. The x86 microprocessor cores deliver high instructions/clock (IPC) for server-class applications and support the latest x86 extensions such as AVX 512 and new instructions for fast transfer of AI data. The AI Coprocessor is a clean-sheet processor designed to deliver high performance and efficiency on deep-learning applications, freeing up the x86 cores for general-purpose computing. Both the x86 and AI Coprocessor technologies have now been proven in silicon using a new scalable SoC platform with eight x86 cores and an AI Coprocessor able to compute 20 trillion AI operations/sec with 20 terabytes/sec memory bandwidth. This SoC architecture requires less than 195mm2 in TSMC 16nm and provides an extensible platform with 44 PCIe lanes and 4 channels of PC3200 DDR4.

Video:

To access the live webcast of the talk (active at 16:28 of the day of the presentation) and the archived version of the talk, use the URL SU-EE380-20200212. This is a first class reference and can be transmitted by email, Twitter, etc.

A URL referencing a YouTube view of the lecture will be posted HERE a week or so following the presentation.

About the Speaker:

Glenn Henry joined IBM in 1967 and became the leading architect and software manager for several IBM systems, including the System/38, the RT/PC and AIX. He received major corporate awards for his work on the System/38 and AIX, and in 1985, was appointed an IBM Fellow. In 1988, Mr. Henry left IBM to become Dell's first VP of R&D and later became a Senior VP & CTO at Dell, working directly for Michael Dell. In 1994, he and three others left Dell to try to create a low cost Intel-compatible (x86) processor. After wandering for a year, funding was procured, and Centaur Technology Inc. was formed in early 1995 with Mr. Henry as President. Twenty-four years and many shipped x86 processors later, Mr. Henry resigned as President and returned to his passions of architecture and design and implementing the next generation AI hardware accelerator. Mr. Henry is an inventor on more than 350 U.S. Patents, and his career is reflected in an oral history at the Computer History Museum, and in a documentary about Centaur ("The Rise of the Centaur").`