Blue Gene/L compute chip: control, test, and bring-up infrastructure

  • Authors:
  • R. A. Haring;R. Bellofatto;A. A. Bright;P. G. Crumley;M. B. Dombrowa;S. M. Douskey;M. R. Ellavsky;B. Gopalsamy;D. Hoenicke;T. A. Liebsch;J. A. Marcella;M. Ohmacht

  • Affiliations:
  • IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York;IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York;IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York;IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York;IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York;IBM Engineering and Technology Services, Rochester, Minnesota;IBM Engineering and Technology Services, Rochester, Minnesota;IBM Engineering and Technology Services, Bangalore, India;IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York;IBM Engineering and Technology Services, Rochester, Minnesota;IBM Engineering and Technology Services, Rochester, Minnesota;IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York

  • Venue:
  • IBM Journal of Research and Development
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

The Blue Gene®/L compute (BLC) and Blue Gene/L link (BLL) chips have extensive facilities for control, bring-up, self-test, debug, and nonintrusive performance monitoring built on a serial interface compliant with IEEE Standard 1149.1. Both the BLL and the BLC chips contain a standard eServer™ chip JTAG controller called the access macro. For BLC, the capabilities of the access macro were extended 1) to accommodate the secondary JTAG controllers built into embedded PowerPC® cores; 2) to provide direct access to memory for initial boot code load and for messaging between the service node and the BLC chip; 3) to provide nonintrusive access to device control registers; and 4) to provide a suite of chip configuration and control registers. The BLC clock tree structure is described. It accommodates both functional requirements and requirements for enabling multiple built-in self-test domains, differentiated both by frequency and functionality. The chip features a debug port that allows observation of critical chip signals at full speed.