BittWare IA-220-U2| Computational Storage Processor (CSP) | U.2 | Computational Storage Services (CSS)

What is Computational Storage?

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) defines computation storage as “Architectures that provide Computational Storage Services coupled to storage offloading host processing and/or reducing data movement”, with two foundational constructs, Computational Storage Devices (CSx) and Computational Storage Services (CSS).

For a typical IA-220-U2 deployment, the acceleration tasks are called CSS (computational storage services). For example, the IA-220-U2’s Agilex FPGA can perform compression much faster than a CPU - even surpassing the transfer rate of the storage system for transparent compression.

What is a Computational Storage Processor (CSP)?

CSPs (like the IA-220-U2) work alongside FLASH, providing accelerated computational storage services (CSS) by performing compute, such as compression or encryption. This lets users build out storage using standard SSDs instead of being locked into a single vendor’s FLASH storage.

What features make the BittWare IA-220-U2 a powerful CSP?

Built with the latest PCIe Gen4 interface, the IA-220-U2 can transfer up to twice the bandwidth of Gen3 devices.

Intel Agilex FPGA with 1.4M logic elements.

Choice of user-space or kernel-space implementation for minimal software changes

NVMe Front End. The PCIe endpoint, NVMe Controller, and DMA Engine are all implemented in hardware and support PCIe Gen4 x4 for the IA-220-U2’s standard U.2 interface.

CSS Functions. Components are hardware-accelerated computational storage services (CSS) such as compression or encryption.

FPGA Hardware Components: NoLoad provides FPGA IP and host components.

Eideticom's NoLoad™. Optional NoLoad provides a ready-to-deploy solution from Eideticom. NoLoad is an enterprise-class solution that transforms the IA-220-U2 into a powerful CSP that is easy to deploy

Host Software Components

As a complete solution, NoLoad provides host software with a choice of implementation:

• Libnoload. By modifying the application to use the libnoload library, the OS can remain untouched.
• NoLoad FS. Another option uses the NoLoad FS (file system) as a shim on top of traditional file systems. The advantage here is user applications need zero changes to take advantage of accelerated storage.

Board Specifications

• FPGA: Intel Agilex AGF014
• Core speed grade -3: I/O speed grade -3
• On-board DDR4 SDRAM
• Two banks of DDR4 SDRAM x 72 bits, up to 8GB per bank
• Transfer Rate: 2400 MT/s
• Host interface: PCIe Gen4 x4
• U.2 Connector: Compliant to SFF-8639
• On-board NVMe-MI compliant SMBus controller (Spec. 1.0a)
• Field flash update via software or SMBus
• SMBus FPGA flash control: anti-bricking, fallback and multiboot
• SMBus access to unique board data and temperature sensor
• JTAG connector for access to the FPGA, flash and debug tools
• GPIO connector
• Power supply monitoring and reporting
• Voltage monitoring
• Temperature monitoring
• Fault condition reporting to FPGA
• Cooling: U.2 drive case optimized for cooling with passive heatsink
• Electrical: Hot swapping tolerant
• On-card power derived from U.2 supplies
• Typical FPGA power consumption ~20W
• Card designed to deliver up to 25W power consumption
• Operating temperature: 5°C to 35°C
• Cooling: forced air
• Quality
• Manufactured to IPC-A-610 Class 2
• RoHS compliant
• Form factor: U.2 compliant 2.5” Drive Form Factor, height: 15mm
• BittWare SDK including PCIe driver, libraries, and board monitoring utilities
• Intel High-Level Synthesis (C/C++) & Quartus Prime Pro (HDL, Verilog, VHDL, etc.)Specification standard. It is intended to operate in Glacier Point

Product Data

• Specifications: BittWare IA-220-U2. U.2 FPGA Accelerator. Agilex on U.2 Form Factor with PCIe Gen4