2. Terminology and concepts
Table 2.1 defines the terminology and concepts used in the rest of this document. For other Graphcore-related terms, refer to A Dictionary of Graphcore Terminology.
Term |
Description |
|---|---|
GCL |
Graphcore Communication Library is a part of Poplar SDK and it provides APIs enabling efficient data exchange between IPUs. |
GW-Links |
GW-Links provide a second tier of interconnect for the IPUs interconnected via IPU-Links. Each gateway controller on an IPU-Machine exposes GW-Links externally to the chassis via OSFP ports. |
IPU |
An Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) is a massively parallel processor pioneered by Graphcore for machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence applications. |
IPU-Link™ |
IPU-Links provide direct connection between IPUs. |
Links |
The term “links” is used when it can mean both IPU-Links or GW-Links. |
Replica |
A replica is an instance of a data-parallel application. Such an instance can run on 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 IPUs. |