Parallel computing accessible to everyone: Stakes and Opportunities as from 2013

Available on Kickstarter since September 27, 2012, this project leads by Adapteva, a semiconductor startup company founded in 2008, aims to make ‘’sure’’ that every programmer has access to cheap and open parallel hardware and development tools.

Inspired by hardware communities like Raspberry Pi and Arduino, the team has seen ‘’a critical need for a truly open, high-performance computing platform that will close the knowledge gap in parallel programing’’.

In fact, to make parallel computing, developers need access to a platform that is affordable, open, and easy to use.

One of the goals also of the Parallell project is to provide such a platform! Via the following principles:

• Open Access: Absolutely no NDAs or special access needed! All architecture and SDK documents will be published on the web as soon as the kickstarter project is funded.
• Open Source: The Parallella platform will be based on free open source development tools and libraries. All board design files will be provided as open source once the Parallella boards are released.
• Affordability: Hardware costs and SDK costs have always been a a huge barrier to entry for developers looking to develop high performance applications. Our goal is to bring the Parallella high performance computer cost below $100, making it an affordable platform for all.

‘’The Parallella platform is based on the Epiphany multicore chips developed by Adapteva over the last 4 years and field tested since May 2011. The Epiphany chips consists of a scalable array of simple RISC processors programmable in C/C++ connected together with a fast on chip network within a single shared memory architecture’’.