High performance computing PP-distance algorithms to generate X-ray spectra from 3D models

X-ray crystallography is a powerful method that has significantly contributed to our understanding of the biological function of proteins and other molecules. This method relies on the production of crystals that, however, are usually a bottleneck in the process. For some molecules, no crystallizati...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: González Griñán, César, Balocco, Simone, Bosch Pons, Jaume|||0000-0002-4040-3416, De Haro Ruiz, Juan Miguel|||0000-0002-7427-9118, Paolini, Maurizio, Filgueras Izquierdo, Antonio|||0000-0001-6071-3254, Álvarez Martínez, Carlos|||0000-0003-0536-5183, Pons, Ramon
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/389951
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/389951
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms231911408
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:High performance computing
Field programmable gate arrays
Proteins
pp-distance computation
X-ray spectra
FPGA
OpenCL
Càlcul intensiu (Informàtica)
Matrius de portes programables per l'usuari
Proteïnes
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Arquitectura de computadors
Descripción
Sumario:X-ray crystallography is a powerful method that has significantly contributed to our understanding of the biological function of proteins and other molecules. This method relies on the production of crystals that, however, are usually a bottleneck in the process. For some molecules, no crystallization has been achieved or insufficient crystals were obtained. Some other systems do not crystallize at all, such as nanoparticles which, because of their dimensions, cannot be treated by the usual crystallographic methods. To solve this, whole pair distribution function has been proposed to bridge the gap between Bragg and Debye scattering theories. To execute a fitting, the spectra of several different constructs, composed of millions of particles each, should be computed using a particle–pair or particle–particle (pp) distance algorithm. Using this computation as a test bench for current field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology, we evaluate how the parallel computation capability of FPGAs can be exploited to reduce the computation time. We present two different solutions to the problem using two state-of-the-art FPGA technologies. In the first one, the main C program uses OmpSs (a high-level programming model developed at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, that enables task offload to different high-performance computing devices) for task invocation, and kernels are built with OpenCL using reduced data sizes to save transmission time. The second approach uses task and data parallelism to operate on data locally and update data globally in a decoupled task. Benchmarks have been evaluated over an Intel D5005 Programmable Acceleration Card, computing a model of 2 million particles in 81.57 s – 24.5 billion atom pairs per second (bapps)– and over a ZU102 in 115.31 s. In our last test, over an up-to-date Alveo U200 board, the computation lasted for 34.68 s (57.67 bapps). In this study, we analyze the results in relation to the classic terms of speed-up and efficiency and give hints for future improvements focused on reducing the global job time.