Case Study: RIKEN achieves 30× faster molecular dynamics simulations and 17‑instance ASIP multicore integration in under six months with Synopsys ASIP Designer

RIKEN Develops Custom Processor for Molecular Dynamics Simulator in Less than Six Months with Synopsys’ ASIP Designer

RIKEN, Japan’s largest comprehensive research institution, needed far more compute performance than general-purpose processors could provide for its molecular dynamics (MD) simulations used in drug discovery. The Biosystems Dynamics Research team set out to develop a high-performance application-specific instruction set processor (ASIP), shorten development time, and integrate up to 17 ASIP instances into a multicore chip for the next MDGRAPE-4A system.

Using Synopsys’ ASIP Designer, RIKEN specified a custom instruction set and microarchitecture, added SIMD and specialized instructions, and used the tool’s automatic SDK and synthesizable RTL to run “compiler-in-the-loop” iterations. The result: a C-programmable custom processor that executes MD algorithms about 30× faster than prior cores, was designed from concept to RTL in under six months, and was integrated as 17 cores on a multicore chip with tape-out following within months—cutting simulation times from roughly a year to a few weeks.

RIKEN

Makoto Taiji

Team Leader of the Biosystems Dynamics Research Center