Gen-Z Micro Development Kit eases development
Gen-Z was developed to be a high-speed fabric protocol that uses the existing 802.3 or PCIe PHY infrastructure to access a disaggregated memory pool on a different rack or server. SMART Modular’s Gen-Z µDK is a small standalone hardware platform that allows Gen-Z protocol developers to design beyond the boundaries of software-defined or hardware-assisted acceleration frameworks. It also allows exploration of the full capabilities of the Gen-Z protocol for Memory-Driven Computing (MDC) applications.
“The Gen-Z interconnect standard for rack-scale and hyper-scale computing systems is helping to boost performance, increase efficiency and lower costs,” said Mike Rubino, vice president of worldwide engineering at SMART Modular Technologies. “Gen-Z provides for heterogeneous computing and the composability of compute and storage modules. SMART Modular’s new Gen-Z μDK enables the development of Linux operating system and fabric manager software as well as memory-driven computing (MDC) load-store Gen-Z software applications — which will accelerate the adoption and implementation of Gen-Z fabric computing systems.”
SMART Modular’s μDK provides the hardware and software components for the Gen-Z Host and Gen-Z Device. It will run end-to-end memory load-store accesses on a Gen-Z fabric straight from the box. There will be a limited number of Gen-Z µDKs, so orders are first come, first served.
Specifications
• Gen-Z Host supports four (4) high speed lanes.
• Combination of Gen-Z devices (ZMM) which can provide 768GB of DDR4 memory.
• Stable Linux kernel with Gen-Z sub-system framework supports bridge driver and device tree (.dts) files.
• Accessory cables, power supply and debug boards provided for application bring-up.
• Small chassis with cooling fans that can fit on a lab bench or workstation.
Applications
• Extension of Gen-Z software eco-systems, such as a Linux framework and drivers.
• Development of Gen-Z cable hosts with advanced protocol features like collectives, atomics, and buffer operations.
• Validates and tests memory access load/store latencies over Gen-Z fabric.
• Complete, out-of-the-box reference design for demo purposes.
• Exploration of Gen-Z capabilities, saving time and money by integrating components in one kit.
• FPGA components allow in-field upgrades of firmware and hardware as new features are released, and to add custom features and offload functions for differentiation and prototyping.
“SMART Modular’s initiative in creating this dev kit demonstrates their commitment to the industry and their continued work toward furthering the Gen-Z ecosystem,” said Kurtis Bowman, president of the Gen-Z Consortium. “SMART’s productization of the U.2 DRAM module, the EDSFF DRAM module, and now SMART’s Gen-Z μDK enables the industry to optimize software that supports remote and tiered memory.”
A free webinar entitled “Platform Software Development Kit for Gen-Z Enablement” is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, September 15. It will be co-presented by Erich Hanke, IntelliProp; Bob Frey, SMART Modular; and Ron Huizen, Bittware.
More information
Webinar
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