Another article on France's Alpha supercomputer.
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Compaq Set To Build Alpha
Supercomputer
CMP Tech Web - Thursday, March 02, 2000
Mar 02, 2000 (Tech Web - CMP via COMTEX) -- SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Compaq
Computer will develop one of themost powerful single computers ever built over
the next few years, based on its Alpha microprocessor.
The French Atomic Energy Commission has placed an order for a supercomputer
to simulate and analyze nuclear explosions. The computer must be able to
perform up to five trillion operations per second. Jesse Lipcon, vice president of
the company's Alpha Technology group based in Marlborough, Mass., said the
order demonstrates that the Alpha architecture is one of the best designs for the
ultrahigh-performance segment. Compaq plans to deliver the system by the end
of 2001.
The supercomputer will use about 2,000 Alpha chips running in the 1.25-GHz
range, or about 2,500 chips at the 1-GHz level. It will be based on the current
EV6 generation and will utilize 0.18-micron-level chips. The EV6 line began life at
the 0.35-micron node and has been shipping for two years.
The company is already sampling 1-GHz EV6 chips at the 0.18-micron level,
which they will ramp into production by next year. Compaq plans to add copper
interconnect technology to boost performance up to 1.25 GHz.
After being acquired by Compaq in June 1998, Alpha struck a foundry agreement
to outsource all production to Samsung Electronics.
Alpha plays at the high-performance level-a small niche, compared with
mainstream desktop computers, but still a solid source of revenue, according to
market research company IDC. Compaq holds some 22 percent of the
high-performance server market, which was a $5.76 billion market in 1999, said
Chris Willard, vice president of research at IDC's Mountain View, Calif., office.
While Intel-based designs clearly dominate the computing market, Lipcon said
there is very little overlap between the two technologies because Alpha does not
run on any Windows-based systems.
Copyright (C) 2000 CMP Media Inc. |
