Sonnet Suites - Multi-Threaded EM Engine
Watch a video on this subjectEM Analysis with Parallel Processing on your Desktop
- Sonnet Desktop Solver (DTS) and High Performance Solver (HPS) engines now utilize more CPU cores than ever before
- Matrix Fill algorithm enhancements improve simulation times for large (>3 GB) problems
Sonnet’s electromagnetic (EM) simulations are performed more quickly by utilizing more CPU cores on the same computer in parallel, making complete use of the latest CPU technology from Intel and AMD*. The EM analysis engine creates multiple processes, or threads, each of which solves a different part of the solution matrix on a different CPU core—all at the same time. The result is a dramatic decrease in overall simulation time.
The Technology
Current x86 processor technology is built around multiple computing cores on the same CPU. If they are efficiently applied to a numerically-intensive analysis, each of these cores can function like a separate parallel processor. Harnessing these cores in parallel can produce processing gains that scale nearly with the number of available cores.
Sonnet recognizes these processor technology advances, and has developed EM analysis engines that efficiently harness the power of parallel processing through the use of multiple cores to individually solve individual parts of the moment matrix, at each frequency. In other words, one frequency point is computed at a time, with the solution matrix distributed across the various processor cores in independent processes called "computing threads." When completed, the results of each thread are quickly and efficiently combined.
EM Analysis Engines now employ more parallel cores
Sonnet provides two versions of our EM analysis engine in the Sonnet Professional Suite:
Sonnet Desktop Solver (DTS) Engine
The Sonnet Desktop Solver Engine utilizes 6 cores in parallel
The Sonnet Desktop Solver engine is aimed at typical engineering desktop PCs, and utilizes up to 8 cores in parallel for analysis time reduction.
Most design organizations today use single-CPU workstations for desktop work, while concentrating their hardware budget on back-end shared computing resources. For desktop work, it is usually desirable to maintain an additional 1 or 2 cores for personal work while intensive EM analysis processing is running. The DTS solver balances the need for ongoing productive work on a typical quad core desktop system, while providing a price advantage over the High Performance Solver (HPS) Engine for customers who don't have the hardware to fully leverage the more powerful engine.
Sonnet High Performance Solver (HPS) Engine
The Sonnet High Performance Solver engine is aimed at high-end workstations, which are now typically configured with dual six-core CPUs.
The HPS Engine utilizes up to 64 cores enabling high end computing hardware to deliver ultra-efficient simulations.
The Sonnet High Performance Solver Engine uses up to 64 cores in parallel
The HPS Engine is ideally suited to high-performance Remote EM processing systems, providing a cost-effective shared high computing resource to your engineering team.
Matrix Fill Improved for Large Circuit Analysis
The Sonnet Professional matrix solvers have undergone further algorthim improvements for handling large jobs on 64-bit operating systems. Matrix fill is now fully parallelized for large jobs (> 4GB), which results in significant speed improvements in Release 13 over Release 12.
Release 13 High Performance Solver provides 2.4x faster analysis for this RF package analysis over the previous release
In the example shown above, the Release 13 High Performance Solver required 2.4x less actual execution time to run. The improvement varies from circuit to circuit, with the greatest gains seen in the larger circuits.
The multi-threaded Desktop and High Performance Solvers are part of Sonnet Professional Versions only. Single thread solvers are used in Sonnet Lite, LitePlus, Level2 and Level3 Suites.
High Performance emClusters
The Desktop Solver and High Performance Solver may be employed in a computing cluster using the Sonnet emCluster product. With emCluster, a goup of N high-end computing platforms may harnessed to provide up to an additional N-fold simulation time improvement.
*Multi-Threaded EM Engine not supported on Sun Solaris
