[pypy-dev] PyPy translation on Xeon Phi (pka MIC)

[Yury V. Zaytsev]

On Sun, 2015-04-12 at 09:32 +0200, Armin Rigo wrote:
> Wim's reply is not helpful at all for me, as it is mostly given as a
> series of three-letter acronyms I've never heard about :-)

He's simply referring to the different generations of MICs (MIC = Many
Integrated Core architecture, KNC = Knights Corner [older models], KNL =
Knights Landing [newer models]).

> I don't know where Xeon Phi fits there. It seems to be an x86-64 from
> Wikipedia, but I'm not sure about what is special about it.

I've shortly played with KNC, and put very simply in its current shape
it's basically a plug-in computer extension card, which can function in
several modes, e.g. as an accelerator which receives tasks from the host
system and executes them, or even as a more or less stand-alone box
inside the box running (for instance) a stripped down Linux system.

In the latter mode, software just requires cross-compilation and then
can run on the board as if it was a stand-alone computer, in the former
you have to make use of special APIs to run your tasks on the MICs. It
looks like Wim has taken the first approach, which makes total sense to
get it working with minimal effort :-)

So yes, in this approximation, assume it's x86-64 which requires a
special cross-compiler and has a bit different subset of supported
insns.

-- 
Sincerely yours,
Yury V. Zaytsev