Clearspeed Technology Share Discussion Threads

[diesel] 17/4/2007 13:43

Just logged in to look at this little stock, perhaps the title of the thread is a little misleading?

[tradx666] 17/4/2007 13:41

Well, the unthinkable now seems to be on the horizon....sub £1 soon...the question remains, why, what is the business not doing?

regards

T..

[supernumerary] 16/4/2007 14:50

tradx - no, sorry - only window-shopping...

[tradx666] 16/4/2007 13:11

super,

knew I would get you over to the dark side eventually - just too many good opportunities to miss!

LOL!!

regards

T..

[supernumerary] 11/4/2007 23:49

tradx - depends on the definition of good news - obviously in context I was talking about really good news, not just a one-off order. I don't see it myself, but it remains a risk.

As far as competitors go, I'm surprised you didn't show this as well: Lots of these companies around, all claiming bits of the space for themselves, hence in part my reservations when you were still gung ho...

XMOS? Likely to be another good short given time, lol

[tradx666] 11/4/2007 20:42

Clever Man David, if anyone can pull it off, I suspect he can...

regards

T..

Parallel processing, Clearspeed, Picochip and XMOS
Parallel processing will be one of the key technologies under development this year with UK companies Clearspeed, Picochip and XMOS expected to play a leading part.

A good deal of interest in 2007 will be focussed on what comes out of XMOS, the company founded by the architect of the Inmos Transputer, Professor David May FRS, which received $1.2 million in late 2006 to commercialise a revolutionary new microprocessor design.

Not the least reason for the interest is that May is concentrating on parallel processor architectures, seen as the key technology now that the power density ceiling has flagged the end to serial processing architectures in high-end systems.

"It was 1972 when I graduated and artificial and intelligence and robotics had always been a fascination", says May, who is now Professor of Computer Science at Bristol University, "robotics is a parallel world. Robots do multiple tasks simultaneously. So my world was a parallel world."

25 years ago the Transputer brought a parallel processor architecture to the market which was widely admired and was used in massively parallel systems like radar and fingerprint analysis.

If you ask May about the XMOS architecture, he replies: "That's a closely guarded secret."

If you ask him what the world needs in terms of new microprocessor architectures he replies: "There is a need for a generic kind of platform, whether they are FPGAs and chips full of processors, or whatever"

This is the big issue in the electronics industry today. ""There's a lot of snake oil around in the multi-core business," says Alan Gatherer, CTO for communication infrastructure at Texas Instruments, "I'm not sure anyone knows how to build a generic multi-core architecture. It's a great goal, but the chances of failure are 100 per cent."

"A lot of the parallel processing start-ups have failed because they try to use a sequential programming language like C", says Peter Claydon, founder and COO of parallel processing chip start-up PicoChip, "the mentality of programmers is to expect everything to be serial. Multi-core is here to stay, but it needs a new way of thinking."

"The software guys don't move very fast. That's why multi-core processing looks as if it will be a long –term play", says John Goodacre, ARM's programming manager for multi-processing, "multi-threading was a stop-gap, but it doesn't add anything, and can make software very difficult to write."

"Customers say to us: 'Be very careful with parallel architectures'", says TI's Gatherer, "they ask us: 'You don't know how to programme these massively parallel devices yourselves do you?' That's one of the reasons why there's been no traction for those companies doing massively parallel architectures. These companies programme their own devices because no one else can. When they say: 'We've got a reference design so you don't need to programme it yourself', what they really mean is: 'We've got a reference design because we know you'll never be able to programme it yourself.'"

The problem is not in producing a multi-core chip. Multi-cores used for specific purposes have been common in the industry for years. The problem is producing a multi-core chip which works as a generic processor.

"We can produce a chip with a lot of theoretical MIPS but it won't be very programmable", says TI's Gatherer, "the difficulty is partitioning the programming across the cores. Our customers tell us that, if you have to partition an algorithm across multiple cores, and expect them all to talk to eachother in real-time, that's a hard problem."

"Inevitably there are going to be problems with multi-cores", says May, "the thing causing the most difficulty is that the core runs fast and the memory doesn't. When you try and put multiple cores on a chip sharing the memory, you have problems, because the memory is already running flat out."

"For the last ten to fifteen years what has been financed in the semiconductor industry is people doing very complicated ASIC in a specific market area", says May, "the problem is that, if you're building an ASIC device for a market in 2008 or 2009, which is what you have to do because it takes that long to design a complicated ASIC, you don't know if the market is still going to be there when you've completed the chip. And the cost of design is so high that people are becoming reluctant to fund complex ASIC designs and the number of designs has been dropping over the last 2/3 years. The answer is more generic technologies able to address multiple markets."

This will lead, reckons May, to the emergence of the IP-less companies which will understand both end-applications and how to programme platforms.

"We need engineers who understand the applications, and also know their way around programmable devices, and know how to programme the hardware," says May, "so I see growth in people rolling out generic technologies. There's no need for them to have their own IP. They configure the platform, they don't have to do hardware design or manufacture. It sounds like the ideal business to me. We all ought to be in it."

Can XMOS produce a generic, multi-core, programmable platform capable of being the catalyst for such a revolution in the IC industry?

Maybe 2007 will give the answer.

[tradx666] 11/4/2007 20:15

NVIDIA CUDA
Revolutionary GPU Computing
NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology is a fundamentally new computing architecture that enables the GPU to solve complex computational problems in consumer, business, and technical applications. CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) technology gives computationally intensive applications access to the tremendous processing power of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) through a revolutionary new programming interface. Providing orders of magnitude more performance and simplifying software development by using the standard C language, CUDA technology enables developers to create innovative solutions for data-intensive problems. For advanced research and language development, CUDA includes a low level assembly language layer and driver interface.

Developing with CUDA
The CUDA Toolkit is a complete software development solution for programming CUDA-enabled GPUs. The Toolkit includes standard FFT and BLAS libraries, a C-compiler for the NVIDIA GPU and a runtime driver. The CUDA runtime driver is a separate standalone driver that interoperates with OpenGL and Microsoft® DirectX® drivers from NVIDIA. CUDA technology is currently supported on the Linux and Microsoft® Windows® XP operating systems.

The CUDA Developer SDK provides examples with source code to help you get started with CUDA. Examples include:

Parallel bitonic sort
Matrix multiplication
Matrix transpose
Performance profiling using timers
Parallel prefix sum (scan) of large arrays
Image convolution
1D DWT using Haar wavelet
OpenGL and Direct3D graphics interoperation examples
CUDA BLAS and FFT library usage examples
CPU-GPU C- and C++-code integration
Technology Features
Unified hardware and software solution for parallel computing on CUDA-enabled NVIDIA GPUs
CUDA-enabled GPUs support the Parallel Data Cache and Thread Execution Manager for high performance computing
Standard C programming language enabled on a GPU
Standard numerical libraries for FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) and BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines)
Dedicated CUDA driver for computing
Optimized upload and download path from the CPU to CUDA-enabled GPU
CUDA driver interoperates with OpenGL and DirectX graphics drivers
Support for Linux and Windows XP operating systems
Scales from high performance professional graphics solutions to mobile and embedded GPUs
Native multi-GPU support for high density computing with Quadro CUDA-enabled GPUs
Direct driver and assembly level access through CUDA for research and language development
CUDA technology
GPU computing with CUDA technology is an innovative combination of computing features in next generation NVIDIA GPUs that are accessed through the standard 'C' language. Where previous generation GPUs were based on "streaming shader programs", CUDA programmers use 'C' to create programs called kernels that use many threads to operate on large quantities of data in parallel. In contrast to multi-core CPUs, where only a few threads execute at the same time, NVIDIA GPUs featuring CUDA technology process thousands of threads simultaneously enabling high computational throughput across large amounts of data.

GPGPU, or "General-Purpose Computation on GPUs", has traditionally required the use of a graphics API such as OpenGL, which presents the wrong abstraction for general-purpose parallel computation. Therefore, traditional GPGPU applications are difficult to write, debug, and optimize. NVIDIA GPU Computing with CUDA enables direct implementation of parallel computations in the C language using an API designed for general-purpose computation.

One of the most important innovations offered by CUDA technology is the ability for threads on NVIDIA GPUs to cooperate when solving a problem. By enabling threads to communicate, CUDA technology allows applications to operate more efficiently. NVIDIA GPUs featuring CUDA technology have an on-chip Parallel Data Cache that developers can use to store frequently used information directly on the GPU. Storing information on the GPU allows computing threads to instantly share information rather than wait for data from much slower, off-chip DRAMs. This advance in technology enables users to find the answers to complex computational problems much more quickly than using traditional architectures or GPGPU that is limited to graphics API-based GPU programming.

Why Use CUDA technology?
Performance. NVIDIA GPUs offer incredible performance for data-intensive applications. CUDA technology provides a standard, widely available solution for delivering new applications with unprecedented capability.

Compatibility. Applications developed with the CUDA C-compiler are compatible with future generation GPUs from NVIDIA. Developers investing in GPU computing will immediately benefit from the performance of current GPUs and be confident in NVIDIA's future investment in high performance technology for GPU computing.

Productivity. Developers wanting to tap into NVIDIA GPU computing power can now use the industry standard "C" language for software development. CUDA provides a complete development solution that integrates CPU and GPU software to enable developers to quickly provide new features and greater value for their customers.

Scalability. Applications developed with CUDA technology scale in performance and features across the full line of NVIDIA G8X and future GPUs from embedded form factors to high-performance professional graphics solutions using multiple GPUs. The power of CUDA performance is now available in virtually any system class, from cluster computing installations to consumer products.

[tradx666] 11/4/2007 20:05

supernumerary,

Agree about the gloating, hadn't realised I had wandered in my posts so much - but you do have to support your position here!?!

As for one piece of good news, I'm afraid I disagree, it will take more than one piece of the 'we have just landed a large one-off deal' to get this moving again...For example, and an understanding of the competitive forces they are now confronted with...read this;



This is worth reading as well..Guy does know the subject pretty well;



And these Guys definitly know their stuff - if ever you wanted an independent perspective of the HPC landscape, I would recommend you to talk to these..



regards

T..

[supernumerary] 11/4/2007 16:25

well I have to say I think tradx has done ok - rode it all the way up and is now riding it down again - hard to argue with the record so far. That said, shorting here certainly has its dangers simply because it's so illiquid - one piece of good news could destroy a lot of potential profit very quickly.

[mdrans1] 11/4/2007 15:34

My bet is that Richard knows someone who knows more than tradx.

[supernumerary] 11/4/2007 15:01

tradx - don't mind people shorting and I don't mind them posting information and opinions to support it, but the gloating's a bit tacky, don't you think?

[tradx666] 11/4/2007 14:18

mdrans1,

Richard is not daft, but neither is he a technologist, he is *just* a very rich individual who now invests in start-ups more often than not...as for where he gets his info - my bet is I know as much if not more about this sector of the compute business as he does.....all I have to do now is keep doubling by short until I have as much money as him!

LOL!!

regards

T..

[mdrans1] 10/4/2007 17:59

Trad, you saying Richard's daft? Where does he get his infirmation? Not from you I take it, but then he is a director and he didn't have to up his stake.

[tradx666] 10/4/2007 11:45

mdrans1,

the 'must have' broad market was supposed to have been HPC (which continues to grow), but take-up has been less than stellar. Given that at least two of the GPU manufacturers now seem intent on taking a large slice of this available market by providing cheaper, more robust product, and given that their muscle is huge compared to csd, you have to wonder if it has the bright future it once appeared to have. It looks to me that they have missed the boat, it also looks to me that the cash will run out long before break-even is remotely possible.


regards

T..

[mdrans1] 02/4/2007 14:07

I see that Dragon's Den chap Richard Farleigh is still in there. Perhaps he has been persuaded that there are markets where Clearspeed will be a must have item.

[john hampton] 02/4/2007 12:23

I agree who would be long especially after todays' "A" 100p is an obvious short term target, expect it will dip further to around 70-80p though with all this negative news building?

[greengiant] 02/4/2007 10:01

I continue to short!

gg

[supernumerary] 02/4/2007 09:29

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Oh dear. Not looking too good - wish I'd taken out that short many months ago! I presume that they've got a big contract of some sort in their pockets, or surely nobody in his right mind would consider giving them another £20M to play with? I continue to watch with interest...

[eatmyshorts_inane] 31/3/2007 18:05

Tradx666,

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

[greengiant] 30/3/2007 14:52

Did I read this right, they are burning through about £10m cash per year?

Cash Balances of £11.5m at year end, 3 months in, can we assume that they are now around £8.5m?

Looks like they will need to be thinking of raising more funds

gg

[tradx666] 28/3/2007 11:55

This looks like the cliff-fall is now unstoppable..

regards

T..

[tradx666] 27/3/2007 17:06

John,

I totally agree; they have imho utterly failed to execute or adapt their strategy when and how it matters, as I said, this is back to £1 soon..

regards

T..

[john hampton] 27/3/2007 16:49

Could it be because they aren't winning any market share! The charts don't lie!

[tradx666] 22/3/2007 16:22

mdrans,

I should wake up if I were you, this is heading for £1...sooner rather than later, at this rate this will be in free-fall soon.

The question is, why?

regards

T..

[mdrans1] 06/3/2007 22:49

I was just nodding off.