INTEL XEON PHI

Knights Landing is the codename for Intel’s 2nd generation Xeon Phi Product Family, which delivers massive thread parallelism, data parallelism and memory bandwidth – with improved single-thread performance and Intel Xeon processor binary-compatibility in a standard CPU form factor. Additionally, Knights Landing will offer integrated Intel Omni-Path fabric technology and also be available in the traditional PCIe coprocessor form factor.

2U Intel Xeon Phi Processor (KNL) Quad Module Server/Omni-Path Host Fabric Interface

Designed for parallelized workflows in the HPC market and features four Intel Compute Modules, each with support for the Intel Xeon Phi Processor. The Intel Omni-Path Host Fabric Interface Adapter offers up to 100 Gbps per port of bandwidth, delivering performance that scales with high node and core counts. The hot-swappable compute modules, 3.5″ drive bays, and redundant power supply modules offer easy serviceability.

The most distinguishing feature of the chip is that it’s a bootable host CPU — unlike its predecessor Knights Corner, which is a coprocessor that connects over PCIe. The Knights Landing Phi is the first chip to offer an integrated fabric, Intel’s Omni-Path Architecture (OPA), in the package.

Knights Landing also puts integrated on-package memory in a processor, which benefits memory bandwidth and overall application performance. A six-channel memory controller supports up to 384 GB of DDR4-2400 memory (~90GB/s sustained bandwidth). There are 36 PCI Express 3.0 lanes for connecting to PCIe coprocessors, PCIe SSDs or discrete graphics cards. The MIC (Many Integrated Cores) design fits 8 billion transistors on a die, using 14 nm process technology. The Phi product family comes in three variants: a PCIe coprocessor form factor; a stand-alone CPU; and a stand-alone CPU with integrated Omni-Path fabric technology. The SKU stack that Intel is launching includes four parts with different core counts, frequencies, TDPs and price points.

Many Trailblazing Improvements in Knights Landing

While a majority of applications will continue to achieve maximum performance using Intel Xeon processors, certain highly-parallel applications will benefit dramatically by using Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. Each coprocessor features many more and smaller cores, many more threads and wider vector units. The high degree of parallelism compensates for the lower speed of each individual core to deliver higher aggregate performance for highly-parallel code.

You can use Xeon processors and Xeon Phi coprocessors together to optimize performance for almost any workload. To take full advantage of Xeon Phi coprocessors, an application must scale well to over one hundred threads, and either make extensive use of vectors or efficiently use more local memory bandwidth than is available on an Intel Xeon processor.
Read more about Xeon Phi Coprocessors