Convex Computer Corp today unveils its new high end Meta Series Supercomputer linking its C-Series vector processors to clusters of 7100 Precision Architecture RISC processers, developed by ally Hewlett-Packard Co. The combination of vector processing capability and the Precision Architecture RISC’s fast in-cache scalar processing capability will benefit users in two ways, the Richardson, Texas company says: it will enable parallelisable applications to be run faster; and will enable multiple applications to run simultaneously. Under the system, C-Series supercomputer servers are connected by FDDI to the HP 9000 Series 700 workstation clusters, running under Hewlett-Packard’s HP-UX or BSD Unix 4.3. Meta Series software developed by Convex provides an extended NASA Queuing System, for distributing workload into vector and scalar queues and monitoring activity levels; a Parallel Virtual Machine message passing library; and MLib maths library for PA-RISC. The 7100 chip architecture itself features 32-bit instructions, 64 major operation codes and 140 machine instructions. It has short, long and indexed addressing modes, 48-, 56- and 64-bit virtual memory, 32 32-bit general registers and 32 64-bit floating point registers. Its page size is 4Kb and it has a 32b cache line size. It handles 8-bit ASCII data; 16-bit signed and 32-bit unsigned integers; and 32-, 64- and 128-bit IEEE floating point codes. Hewlett-Packard says the chip provides 99MHz clock speed; 198 MFLOPS peak performance; 256Kb data and instruction caches; support for 32Mb to 400Mb memory and either 525Mb, 1Gb or 2Gb local disk capacity on each node. Clusters of two, four, six and eight processors will be available from Convex in around 90 days. A configuration of four will cost between $400,000 to $500,000. The accompanying C-Series machines cost between UKP100,000 and UKP2m. Upgrade deals will be available for Convex and Hewlett-Packard customers. Convex anticipates that the Meta Series will most likely appeal to existing C-series or Hewlett-Packard workstation owners wanting more processing power, or to users needing combined vector and scalar throughput. It says that third party applications for quantam mechanics, chemistry, structural mechanics and seismic research have been successfully parallelised using the system at its alpha sites. It expects to add the C4 series of vector processors, now in an advanced stage of development and due next year, to the Meta Series. The new chip is also to feature in Convex’s parallel machine, due late next year or early in 1994. Hewlett-Packard is to make separate announcements on the line.
