商品描述
Unmatched: 50 Years of Supercomputing: A Personal Journey Accompanying the Evolution of a Powerful Tool
The rapid and extraordinary progress of supercomputing over the past half-century is a powerful demonstration of our relentless drive to understand and shape the world around us. In this book, David Barkai offers a unique and compelling account of this remarkable technological journey, drawing from his own rich experiences working at the forefront of high-performance computing (HPC).
This book is a journey delineated as five decade-long 'epochs' defined by the systems' architectural themes: vector processors, multi-processors, microprocessors, clusters, and accelerators and cloud computing. The final part examines key issues of HPC and discusses where it might be headed.
A central goal of this book is to show how computing power has been applied, and, more importantly, how it has impacted and benefitted society. To this end, the use of HPC is illustrated in a range of industries and applications, from weather and climate modeling to engineering and life sciences. As such, this book appeals to both students and general readers with an interest in HPC, as well as industry professionals looking to revolutionize their practice.
作者簡介
David Barkai started his HPC career shortly after receiving a PhD in theoretical physics in the early '70s and was active in the field for over 40 years. A central theme of his work was the relationships between applications and architecture, with numerous publications over the years. David's employment at several HPC companies during their heydays - Control Data, Floating Point Systems, Cray Research, Supercomputing Systems Inc., Intel, and SGI - as well as a stint at NASA, offered him a front-row view of the evolving HPC scene over the last few decades.
