Initial explorations of ARM processors for scientific computing

Abstract: Power efficiency is becoming an ever more important metric for both high performance and high throughput computing. Over the course of next decade it is expected that flops/watt will be a major driver for the evolution of computer architecture. Servers with large numbers of ARM processors, already ubiquitous in mobile computing, are a promising alternative to traditional x86-64 computing. We present the results of our initial investigations into the use of ARM processors for scientific computing applications. In particular we report the results from our work with a current generation ARMv7 development board to explore ARM-specific issues regarding the software development environment, operating system, performance benchmarks and issues for porting High Energy Physics software.