Design of the Titan graphics supercomputer

Abstract

The Titan was intended to be a personal visualization tool, i.e. a machine that would allow an engineer or scientist to model a physical entity and then visualize the results of the model. This was achieved by the use of several technologies, namely, dense CMOS gate arrays, a commercial RISC IPU (reduced-instruction-set computer instruction processing unit), and pipelinable floating-point units, and known effective architecture features. The opportunities and costs of these technologies and the architectural decisions that resulted in the successful development of Titan are discussed.<>