Parsys Ltd has at last been able to follow up the statements of intent it issued over a year ago with the formal announcement of its Inmos Ltd T9000 Transputer-based SN9000 series parallel computers. The new range, which is targeted at the traditional scientific and technical parallel computing markets, will comprise five model types, covering a performance range from 800 MIPS to over 400,000 MIPS. All will use Inmos’s 32-way C104 switch chip. The machines consist of modules with either 8Mb, 32Mb or full 64-bit memory addressing in size 2 High Performance Transputer Module format; or 16Mb and 64Mb in size 4 format. Peripheral access is via SCSI-II modules. All can be hosted by a personal computer or Sun Microsystems Inc workstation. Parsys will also provide a single T9000 module with Ethernet, SCSI II, RS232 port and minimum 16Mb memory. The SN9300, aimed at engineering and educational users comes in two types of enclosure: full VME with T9000 VME master board for supporting flexible addressing over the VME bus; or passive rack, which uses the backplane for power sourcing only. The system uses up to four processors per board, and is expandable to 40 processors. Each board has 128Mb RAM, 100 MFLOPS and 800 MIPS. The SN9400, designed for single users, comprises a series of small enclosures, each with its own power and cooling systems that can be linked together in a stack. Users can choose between a single or multiple processor host, with a maximum of four switched or four unswitched processors per unit. The system is expandable to 16 processors, with a maximum of 512Mb RAM. Each unit of four processors offers 100 MFLOPS and 800 MIPS. The SN9500, also for single users, is a fully switched network of 16 High Performance Transputer Modules. It is designed to fit under a standard workstation processor unit and to be hosted by it. It has 512Mb RAM and delivers 400 MFLOPS and 3,200 MIPS peak per unit. The higher capacity SN9700, is designed as a network server for up to four simultaneous users. It has up to four motherboards, each with 16 fully switched High Performance Transputer Modules. The motherboards are arranged in four clusters that communicate through a single backplane. Further disk and tape systems can be accommodated, along with up to 64 Transputers. It offers 2,048Mb maximum RAM and delivers 1,600 MFLOPS and 12,800 MIPS peak. Top of the range is the SN9800, for multi-user networked systems. It is fully switchable, scalable to over 2,000 processors and capable of supporting a range of topologies from simple clustered networks to reconfigurable complex networks.
Idris
SCSI and Ethernet devices are integrated closely into the system, enabling any processor within the system to be attached to a SCSI or Ethernet controller. It offers 8,192Mb RAM per unit, with a system maximum of 65,536Mb. Each unit delivers 6,400 MFLOPS and 51,200 MIPS. The SN9000 systems will initially use the Inmos tool sets for C and Occam, with Fortran in 1994. The Idris operating system can also run on as many Transputers as necessary while enabling part of the system to remain as a native T9000 network. The smaller systems arrive first, probably around the third quarter. Parsys intends prices to begin at an extremely aggressive $10,000. The larger systems should follow by the year-end.
