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Newsletter
 

Volume 4, Number 3, July 2024
 

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Dr. Radoslav Danilák, Founder and CEO of Tachyum

Summertime is traditionally a quiet time for companies, but not for us. At Tachyum, we have started to ramp up hiring to support the company’s growth. We have recently opened new positions for highly qualified professionals to serve as CPU hardware design and verification engineers and specialists for advanced AI topics. New positions are also open for Tachyum’s Slovakian R&D campus, comprising of modern Class-A offices with an internal data center and laboratory in Bratislava. We anticipate opening further positions in the US and potentially in other locations globally.

In the second quarter of 2024, Tachyum’s achievements included a series of progressive milestones and moved its Prodigy software distribution, a completely integrated software stack and package, into beta testing. Quality completion of Prodigy’s software stack is a key component as we continue to advance towards chip production and distribution.

After advancing the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) to beta, Tachyum added RAID capabilities to Prodigy. RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a way of storing the same data across multiple hard drives (HDDs) or solid-state drives (SSDs) to protect data in case of a drive failure by creating redundancy and improving performance.

Furthermore, we integrated the BF16 data type into the Prodigy compiler and software distribution, which is now available to early adopters and customers as a pre-installed image as part of beta testing. This week we also announced that BF16 has been successfully tested and verified operational on our Prodigy FPGA prototype, ensuring increased throughput for users’ high-performance processing needs. BF16, or bfloat16, is a shortened floating point data type. As the default of our Prodigy software distribution, we have moved to 64KB memory page size.

Tachyum’s engineers started to test Git access to Tachyum software repositories. Git is an open-source distributed control system designed to track modifications in source code during software development. Until Tachyum OSS (Open-Source Software) is upstream, we will maintain Git repositories for public access, initially for our close partners. Currently, only the most recent version will be available. After production release, we will maintain multiple software versions. As part of the testing process, we will also donate hardware to the OSS community for expanded evaluation opportunities.

On the hardware side, Tachyum’s engineers added a watchdog timer to the Prodigy FPGA emulation system to help detect and recover from device or system malfunction. Watchdog is a mechanism that resets a computer if something goes wrong.

We also enabled an Instruction Profiling Unit (IPU), a low overhead way to collect the profile of non-instrumented executed code, on the Prodigy Universal Processor. IPU is used by hyperscalers to profile applications in production execution and recompile code to gain better performance.

We have also been busy this summer preparing for two prestigious events – IC China hosted by China Semiconductor Industry Association and Supercomputing (SC) 24 in the US, the international conference and exhibition for high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis. We look forward to sharing more information and our direct experience in subsequent newsletters.

Tachyum Released UEFI User Manual

Moves UEFI to Beta, Adds RAID 1 Capabilities to Prodigy

In conjunction with the advancement of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) to beta, Tachyum released a user manual that provides details about how to access and use the UEFI, which is embedded in the system flash on all Prodigy platforms. The manual explains each of the UEFI menus, how to configure UEFI parameters and how to save new configurations. The documents are intended for users who install, maintain, troubleshoot and administer Prodigy platforms.

UEFI replaces the traditional BIOS as a next generation interface between the operating system and platform firmware. It is used during startup to initialize the hardware and load the OS. Additionally, UEFI determines device boot priority and allows users to customize hardware and software settings. With this latest release, menus and submenus, screens and options received upgrades for better functionality and an improved user experience.

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“We continue to see impressive advancements in the capabilities and functionality of Prodigy at every level of development. Moving UEFI from alpha to beta allows a better look and polishing of the UEFI. RAID 1 was added to provide a RAID boot without the need for expensive NVMe SSD RAID cards, helping to bring Prodigy-enabled systems to datacenter-level class. All of these moves, including the expectation that we will have a release candidate available next quarter, further signifies that we are nearing production of the Prodigy Universal Processor.”

Dr. Radoslav Danilák

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Latest Achievements

Tachyum Is Testing Open Sourcing of Prodigy Software Through Git

Tachyum is testing Git access to Tachyum software repositories. This latest advancement is part of the company’s continued commitment to releasing all open-source software in order to provide customers and partners with an easy, straightforward platform for early Prodigy testing ahead of silicon availability while reducing support requirements.


 
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Tachyum Adds Watchdog Timers to Prodigy FPGA

Tachyum has added a watchdog timer to its Prodigy FPGA emulation system to help detect and recovery from device or system malfunction. The mechanism facilitates automatic correction of temporary hardware faults and prevents errant or malevolent software from disrupting system operations.


 
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Tachyum Software Distribution Package Enters Beta Testing

Tachyum’s Prodigy software distribution, a completely integrated software stack and package, is now available to early adopters and customers as a pre-installed image as part of the beta phase of testing.


 
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Tachyum Demonstrates Full BF16 AI Support in GCC and PyTorch

Tachyum has successfully integrated the BF16 data type into its Prodigy compiler and software distribution, which is now available to early adopters and customers as a pre-installed image as part of beta testing.


 
Read more...

Tachyum Demonstrates Linux and Applications with 64KB Page Size

Tachyum moved to 64KB page size as the default of its Prodigy software distribution, a completely integrated software stack and package.


 
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Tachyum Demonstrates Instruction Profiling Unit on Prodigy FPGA

Tachyum enabled an Instruction Profiling Unit (IPU), a low overhead way to collect the profile of non-instrumented executed code, on its Prodigy Universal Processor. IPU is used by hyperscalers to profile applications in production execution and recompile code to gain better performance.


 
Read more...

Tachyum Tests Hardware For Donation to OSS Community Before Upstreaming

Tachyum will begin upstreaming code to the open-source community to encourage expanded evaluation opportunities with the Prodigy platform. As part of the testing process, Tachyum will donate computing resources to the OSS community for expanded evaluation opportunities with the Prodigy platform.


 
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Tachyum Targets 16KB QLC NAND Flash Page and Indirection Unit

Tachyum’s Prodigy software distribution package and pre-configured applications will be optimized for 64KB pages for Linux and 16KB Indirection Unit (IU) for solid state drives in advance of QLC NAND flash eventual replacement for HDDs in the data center. This achievement ensures that Prodigy-enabled systems will support future QLC NAND flash, networking requirements and make 16KB storage networking stack much more efficient for 1.6T Ethernet in servers.


 
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Tachyum Successfully Tests BF16 on Prodigy FPGA Hardware

BF16, or bfloat16, data type has been successfully tested and verified operational on its Prodigy FPGA, ensuring increased throughput for users’ high-performance processing needs.


 
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Events

Prodigy 2 to strengthen “Made In EU” brand

July 3, 2024, Leoben, Austria

Prodigy 2 to strengthen “Made In EU” brand

At the invitation of Advanced Technologies & Solutions (AT&S), a leading global manufacturer of high-quality IC substrates and printed circuit boards, Dr. Danilák and Marwan Oghli visited their production plant in Leoben, Austria. The Austrian company AT&S is one of the few companies outside of Asia that focuses on packaging and IC substrates. The cooperation of Tachyum and AT&S would strengthen “Made In EU” brand for products within the second generation of Prodigy 2 chips.

Taiwan-EU Semiconductor Forum

June 10, 2024, Berlin, Germany

Taiwan-EU Semiconductor Forum

Tachyum was invited to the Taiwan-EU Semiconductor Forum, where Marwan Oghli and other participants discussed the biggest challenges in the industry and ways to increase semiconductor production capacity in Europe. Europe is aware of its lagging behind in the semiconductor industry and is working on strategic partnerships.

Agenda for Sustainable Development

June 13, 2024, Bratislava, Slovakia

Agenda for Sustainable Development

Tachyum was part of the conference and workshop How to communicate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in times of complexity and polarization, which was organized by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the office of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic in cooperation with the OECD. Miriam Madrová, Senior Marketing Communication Manager at Tachyum, together with other relevant actors, discussed and created ideas on how to use the cooperation of the state and non-state sectors in the communication of sustainable development topics.

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Tachyum® and Tachyum Prodigy®, TPU® are trademarks of Tachyum Ltd, registered in the United States and other countries. All other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. This document is provided for informational purposes only. All statements regarding Tachyum's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only. © 2019-2024 Tachyum, Inc. All rights reserved.

Tachyum, Inc., 8275 South Eastern Ave, Ste 233, Las Vegas, NV 89123, USA

Tachyum s.r.o., Karadžičova 14, 821 08 Bratislava, Slovak Republic, EU

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