Dragon System
April 1988
1
Computational Architecture
Dragon System

I Introduction
II Dragon Technology
III Applications & Architectures
IV Transfer of Technology, Partnership
 & Standardization
V  Future Strategy
Introduction
Foundations for building architectures for a wide range of document processing machines

· controllers : Printer, Network, Scanners...

· servers : Data base servers, Printers, Gateway

· workstations : mid, high & very high end

=> high data bandwidth
Parallel processing architecture studies

 · Multiprocessor offers flexibility in applications
and incrementality in cost and in performance

· Try to solve computational intensive tasks
like document recognition...

· Second generation of multiprocessor using
new concepts & new technology

· Compatible with future Unix Operating systems
with lightweight processes like SunOS phase3
Dragon Technology
· Communications studies : VLSI BUS
[Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool]
· VLSI Chip Set
[Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool]
· Micro-Packaging
[Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool]
APPLICATIONS

Applications & markets

 · High end parallel computer


 · Desk-Top multiprocessor
 · High end Workstations

 · High end Printers servers
 · File and Data-bases servers

 · Add-in boards in standards platform
 · Industrial control
 · OEM multiprocessors


 · Chips set & Micro-packaging
System Architectures

Monoboard system (20 MIPS, 20 MB/sec IO,
128 MB RAM, for controllers, low end printer & scanners
[Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool]
High end Server
Example of 24 Processors (400 Mips), 8 Memory Banks (1/2 GByte) and 2 VME IO Channels
[Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool]
Transfer of Research


For applications in Office Business
(workstation, server...)
With the "Standard platform" strategy of Xerox

· need to find a Computer Company partner



For Controllers type of Business (printers...)

Because the difficulty to design low cost complex Special purpose VLSI

· need to make some of these Chips "standard"
Partnership & Cooperation

PartnerShip with SUN

· SUN put all its energy on the SPARC
monoprocessor familly
· Faces lot of competition on high end
 Slicon Graphics, Ardent...
· No plan on VLSIfication of the system &
on multiprocessor

Joint Development
of a Dragon based architecture

· Design a VLSI Chip set for all the family

· Build a multiprocessor prototype

· Make the VLSI Bus a standard
Standardization

Try to Standardize the VLSI BUS in cooperating also with Semi-conductor companies :

 · Motorola, NS, AMD or Cypress...
good chances because open architecture compatible with
three industrial standards :
 any microprocessor
 bridge with industrial Busses like VME, MultiBus, PC...
 any operating system UNIX, MSDOS...
 
 
Solve the problem of cost of VLSI because now these components become "catalog Chips"


· specially true for Cache & complex chips...
Future Strategy
Give us access to the design of a standard high performance platform
we have the knowledge and we master better than anybody the architecture. That give us 2 years of advance.

· Customisation for document processing
High Bandwidth is Crucial for supporting high performance VLSI operators.

For High speed printer , High speed network controller, Graphic controller, High speed disk controller, Compression Decompression of images...

 · Specialized operators connected to the Bus
This architecture is only at his beginning :
Future Directions on parallelism
For future computing intensive application like Document recognition...

· MultiMegaByte Second level Caches
· Other topology to connect specialized operators...