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...