Testimonial
Video
Accelerating Chip Design with Cutting-Edge Storage and a High-Powered Partnership
As a leading provider of data processing units (DPUs) and data management solutions, Kalray faced a challenge in their Electronic Design Automation (EDA) workflow for developing next-gen chips like Coolidge2. The meticulous chip design process requires massive compute power, with simulations and analyses routinely taking weeks to complete across hundreds of servers.
Kalray’s EDA infrastructure hit performance bottlenecks, even with an enterprise storage solution. With millions of small files to manage and terabytes of data flowing daily, the EDA team needed a storage solution that could seamlessly handle this intense data throughput.
The answer came through Kalray’s strategic partnership with Dell Technologies, combined with Kalray’s own innovation in software-defined storage – the Ngenea suite. Ngenea provides a global data management layer (NG-Hub), high-performance tier 1 storage (NG-Stor), and NVMe storage arrays (NG-Box).
By deploying NG-Hub on Dell PowerEdge servers and leveraging NG-Stor alongside Dell’s PowerScale for cost-effective storage tiering, Kalray achieved a best-of-both-worlds scenario. The integrated solution delivered blistering performance and intelligent data management.
The results were remarkable. Initial tests showed a 16x boost in small file performance and 4x faster large file speeds compared to their previous setup. Encouraged by these gains, Kalray migrated their entire 120TB data infrastructure to the Ngenea architecture for the new fiscal year.
"In every industry, time is money. If we can give our customers their time back and performance that meets every project's needs, we're doing our jobs well"
The time savings alone made the effort worthwhile, but the benefits extended far beyond that:
- 3x faster test simulation times
- 4x increase in compiling C code speed
- 2x faster RTL design compilation
- Seamless integration with tools like Cadence and Synopsys
- Meeting backup SLAs by reducing backup windows from weeks to days
- Mitigating crashes and disruptions from full disks or network issues
- Estimated $2.5M cost savings per project from accelerated timelines
By combining Ngenea’s software-defined storage intelligence with the raw compute power of Dell’s hardware, Kalray optimized storage performance, accessibility, and costs. Their EDA workflow became a well-oiled machine for developing cutting-edge chips efficiently.
“Working with Dell is ideal,” Baissus stated, “because Kalray software and Dell hardware maximize performance that our customers will feel day-to-day.”
As they continue pushing the performance envelope, Kalray takes pride in having their own K200LP cards and Ngenea tech driving their corporate infrastructure, enabled by Dell’s partnership. This potent combo is keeping Kalray’s EDA team ahead of the pack in the chipmaking race.
