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To: MJ who wrote (14240)11/15/2005 9:38:47 AM
From: Wes  Respond to of 14451
 
University of Connecticut Selects SGI Altix as Foundation of New Institute for Supercomputing and Visualization

November 15, 2005 09:04:18 (ET)

SEATTLE, Nov 15, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- To initiate its long-planned Connecticut Institute for Supercomputing and Visualization, the University of Connecticut School of Engineering (Storrs Campus) purchased and recently installed two SGI(R) Altix(R) systems from Silicon Graphics (SGID, Trade).

An 8-processor SGI(R) Altix(R) 350 mid-range server with 8GB of memory will serve as a front-end to a 64-processor SGI(R) Altix(R) 3700 Bx2 supercomputer configured with 64GB of memory. Both systems will interact with the School's SGI(R) Onyx(R) visualization system and a 1TB direct-attached SGI(R) InfiniteStorage TP900 disk array to provide researchers with a seamless computational and visualization platform.

According to the School of Engineering's Ian Greenshields, Associate Dean-Academic Affairs, these two new systems will form the basis of a supercomputing facility that ultimately will become a national center of excellence in supercomputing research and applications.

The Altix systems were installed in early November at the Booth Engineering Center for Advanced Technology, a computing research center operated by the School of Engineering. Faculty from the School of Engineering and elsewhere in the University will rely upon the systems for a diversity of research applications. Following are several examples that illustrate how the Altix systems will be employed in computing-intensive research conducted by the School.

-- Biomolecular and Metabolic Engineering. Due to rapid advances in
sequencing technology, the genomes of numerous organisms have been made
readily available to the research community. Consequently, it is now
possible to create genome scale mathematical models of these organisms
and simulate their metabolic processes. These "in silico" models may
be used to identify metabolic pathways in a given organism that may be
engineered to carry out processes, such as development of a new
pharmaceutical drug. The models also may be used to identify potential
drug targets in pathogenic organisms, and to determine the best
potential strategy for treating a pathogen. The use of genome scale
modeling permits researchers to identify potential drug targets in
pathogenic organisms, as well as learn how to manipulate beneficial
organisms for the betterment of society. Implementation of these models
can be computationally intensive, especially when incorporating
stochastic phenomena or sub-cellular spatial heterogeneity. With the
Altix systems, the models can incorporate a substantial level of
detail, resulting in more accurate and realistic predictions.
-- Fuel Cells and Alternative Energy. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
is applied to understand highly coupled fluid dynamics, species
transport and electrochemical kinetics of fuel cells. These simulations
serve as a basis for understanding the limiting phenomena of fuel cell
operation, and for design improvements. Due to the intrinsic multi-
scale nature and complex multi-physics phenomena occurring in fuel
cells, these computations have very large memory and processing
requirements, and are thus very well suited for deployment on the Altix
systems.
-- Parachute Dynamics. One UConn researcher has been working with the U.S.
Army Soldier Systems Center (Natick, MA) on the development of
large-scale computational models for simulating the complex behavior of
parachute systems. The models typically exceed four million
computational elements, which mandates the use of massively parallel
computer systems. The ability to accurately simulate parachute system
behavior will reduce the amount of physical testing needed, and
therefore costs, associated with development of new parachute designs.
-- Uncertainty Analysis in Biological Systems. In seeking to understand
biological systems, researchers sometimes draw the analogy of a
chemical plant. In flexibility analysis, researchers seek to answer
questions such as: "During plant operation, can we ensure that process
constraints will be satisfied for a given range of uncertain parameter
values?" This analysis can help determine the adequacy of UConn
researchers' mathematical models or the accuracy of their process
constraints. If researchers view the metabolic processes occurring in
living cells -- for example, human cells -- as unit operations, then
conceptually, flexibility analysis could be applied to metabolic
processes. The scope of the problem is orders of magnitude larger than
this small example, and supercomputing will be a powerful tool in
solving flexibility analysis problems related to metabolic processes.
In addition to the use of the Altix systems in research, the School of Engineering has developed a wide-ranging set of outreach plans aimed at introducing 21st century computation to a wider audience.

The University's Altix run Novell(R) SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server, Version 9 and a range of applications, including Star-P(TM) from Interactive Supercomputing LLC. Star-P enables a client-server model in which a desktop client application is transparently linked with a powerful remote supercomputing server through a standard computer network. This greatly speeds up desktop computations, and allows larger problem sets to be handled.

Based on scalable Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 Processors, SGI Altix systems are particularly well suited to UConn's scientific applications, due in large part to SGI's third-generation NUMAflex(TM) architecture. This unique global shared-memory architecture enables researchers to hold entire data sets in memory, allowing for faster and more interactive data analysis, and resulting in more incisive conclusions.

"The ambitious and visionary agenda for the new Connecticut Supercomputing and Visualization Institute involves research that requires some of the most advanced and scalable computing architectures available today," said Afshad Mistri, senior manager, advanced visualization and scientific markets segment, SGI. "SGI is delighted to provide the bedrock technology for this exciting new initiative, and we look forward to collaborating with the Institute as it pursues important breakthroughs in a broad range of disciplines."

About the University of Connecticut School of Engineering

The University of Connecticut is the state's flagship institution of higher learning, and a Land Grant and Sea Grant College as well as a Space Grant Consortium institution. Enrollment exceeds 27,000 students. Founded in 1901, the School of Engineering is the state's only public, accredited degree-granting engineering program and serves 2,100 undergraduate and graduate students. Additional details may be found at www.engr.uconn.edu.

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)

SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is a leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, Altix, Onyx, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks, and NUMAflex, and The Source of Innovation and Discovery is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Novell is a registered trademark, and SUSE is a trademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACT
Marla Robinson
marlar@sgi.com
+1-256-773-2371
SGI PR Hotline
+1-650-933-7777
SGI PR Facsimile
+1-650-933-0283
SOURCE Silicon Graphics, Inc.

Marla Robinson, of SGI, +1-256-773-2371, or marlar@sgi.com, or SGI PR Hotline,
+1-650-933-7777, or SGI PR Facsimile, +1-650-933-0283
prnewswire.com



To: MJ who wrote (14240)11/15/2005 9:42:46 AM
From: Wes  Respond to of 14451
 
Silicon Graphics Prism Visualization Systems Sweep 2005 HPCwire Editors` Choice and Readers` Choice Honors

November 15, 2005 09:04:15 (ET)

SEATTLE, SC|05, Nov 15, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Silicon Graphics (SGID, Trade) today announced that its groundbreaking Silicon Graphics Prism(TM) systems swept top honors for visualization products in the 2005 HPCwire Innovation Awards. The readers and editors of HPCwire, the journal of record for the high-performance computing (HPC) industry, singled out SGI as the source of the most innovative HPC visualization technology while providing solutions that offer the best price/performance in the high- end visualization or graphics market.

HPCwire Publisher Tom Tabor presented SGI with four awards in ceremonies today at the SC|05 conference held here at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center.

HPCwire 2005 Readers' Choice Awards:
-- Most Innovative Visualization Product or Technology
-- Best Price-Performance in High-End Graphics or Visualization
HPCwire 2005 Editors' Choice Awards:
-- Most Innovative Visualization Product or Technology
-- Best Price-Performance in High-End Graphics or Visualization
"The verdict from HPCwire's global readership and its panel of editors and technology visionaries is very clear: Silicon Graphics Prism stands alone in delivering superior innovation and value," said Gabriel Broner, senior vice president and general manager, Visual Systems Group, SGI. "We are delighted to be honored by the world's most discriminating judges of technology once again, and we intend to continue to deliver cost-efficient solutions that enable our customers to break down barriers to understanding and insight."

"While the top tier of computation has seen its share of benchmarks, white papers, analyst reports, and legislative studies, HPCwire's Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards indicate how those on the front lines of both commercial and academic high performance computing have offered their personal input on exactly where the cutting edge of technology lies," said Thomas B. Tabor, president of Tabor Communications, Inc, publisher of HPCwire. For its Readers' Choice Awards, HPCwire annually polls a representative sample of its worldwide readership. HPCwire Editors' Choice awards were selected by a panel of HPCwire editors and luminaries.

SC|05 attendees can see the award-winning Silicon Graphics Prism system in action in the SGI Booth (No. 602). SC|05 demonstrations include a Boeing 777 collaborative workflow simulation driven by a 128-processor Silicon Graphics Prism system with six graphics pipes and 256GB of memory. Taking place in the SGI, Intel and Boeing booths, the demo recreates a Boeing factory quality control scenario to show how multiple technologies can combine to turn a time-consuming but essential quality control process into a seamless exchange of information and insight -- even when participants are miles apart. The unique demonstration also incorporates SGI OpenGL Vizserver(TM) software ensuring all demo participants can access and interact on demand with any part of a 60GB Boeing 777 model using laptops, or virtually any type of computer.

Combining the power of SGI's award-winning, scalable, shared-memory visualization architecture with leading 64-bit Linux(R) scalability found in SGI Altix(R) HPC servers and supercomputers, the Silicon Graphics Prism family delivers the best of both worlds with unbeatable visualization performance and Linux innovation, all in a single platform. Based on best-of-breed industry-standard components, with Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processors and ATI(R) graphics processors, the system is both powerful and economical. For more information on Silicon Graphics Prism, visit: sgi.com .

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)

SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is a leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, Altix, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks, and Silicon Graphics Prism, OpenGL VizServer and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACT
Lisa Pistacchio
pistacchio@sgi.com
+1-650-933-5863
SGI PR HOTLINE
+1-650-933-7777
SGI PR FACSIMILE
+1-650-933-0283
SOURCE SGI
media, Lisa Pistacchio of SGI, +1-650-933-5863, or pistacchio@sgi.com; or SGI PR
HOTLINE, +1-650-933-7777; or SGI PR FACSIMILE, +1-650-933-0283
prnewswire.com



To: MJ who wrote (14240)11/15/2005 9:55:06 AM
From: Wes  Respond to of 14451
 
SGI Seizes Spotlight at SC|05 With Announcements Aimed at Accelerating Pace of Innovation in HPC Markets

November 15, 2005 09:04:13 (ET)

SC|05 - SEATTLE, Nov 15, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- At this annual convention of the world's most demanding technology users, Silicon Graphics (SGID, Trade) is offering attendees a glimpse of current solutions and future technologies that promise to extend SGI's long history of accelerating innovation in high-performance computing (HPC) markets. With an extensive array of announcements, demonstrations, booth presentations and conference sessions, SGI is poised to deliver a powerful and indelible presence at SC|05.

At SC|05, SGI (Booth No. 602) is launching a blade-based redesign of its flagship SGI(R) Altix(R) server family; unveiling the first commercially available native server-to-storage InfiniBand solution; driving a groundbreaking collaborative workflow demonstration with Intel Corp., demonstrating the potential of InfiniBand as a server-to-storage solution, and is participating in technical sessions and panels throughout the conference.

"SGI is a vital resource to customers across the high-performance marketplace," said Dave Parry, senior vice president and general manager, Server and Platform Group, SGI. "We're delivering key technologies and new capabilities that the leading scientists and engineers of the world will use to solve mankind's biggest challenges. From the debut of our powerful new server platform to showing that it's possible to showing on the SC|05 show floor that it is possible to collaborate factory-wide using a virtual recreation of an entire aircraft, SGI is proving that its vision for multi- paradigm computing is now a powerful and compelling reality."

SGI News at SC|05

SGI's news announcements cover a broad spectrum of HPC product lines and technologies, including these first two press releases of the week.

* Unveiled today, the new SGI(R) Altix(R) 4000 platform that combines
industry-standard components and the world's most powerful server
architecture in a highly dense and deployable blade-based form
factor. SGI has integrated its renowned scalable shared-memory
SGI(R) NUMAflex(TM) architecture with blade packaging to create the
first 64-bit Linux(R) server with a blade design that offers true
"plug and solve" flexibility. With the new systems, users can
readily configure any computing vision of a single platform
accommodating the needs of a broad range of applications. (See: SGI
Launches New Flagship Altix 4000 Platform)
* SGI today became the industry's first provider to offer a complete,
high-performance, server-to-storage native InfiniBand interconnect
solution. The new InfiniBand-based SGI(R) InfiniteStorage TP9700
system allows customers to leverage previous investments by
connecting storage to an existing InfiniBand-based cluster with
SGI's new commercially available native InfiniBand storage. (See:
SGI Unveils Industry's First Native Server-to-Storage InfiniBand
Solution)
* The University of Connecticut School of Engineering (Storrs Campus)
announced that SGI Altix systems will form the foundation of the new
Connecticut Institute for Supercomputing and Visualization. Earlier
this month, the University installed an SGI(R) Altix(R) 350 mid-
range server with 8GB of memory and 8 Intel(R) Itanium2(R)
processors will serve as a front-end to a 64-processor SGI(R)
Altix(R) 3700 Bx2 supercomputer configured with 64GB of memory. Both
systems will interact with an existing SGI visualization system and
SGI storage solution to accelerate studies in such wide-raging
fields as biomedical and metabolic engineering, fuel cells and
alternative energy, and parachute dynamics. (See: University of
Connecticut Selects SGI Altix as Foundation of New Institute for
Supercomputing and Visualization.
SC|05 Demonstrations
SGI is presenting compelling new technology demonstrations throughout the show floor.

* At SC|05, SGI is demonstrating with Intel Corp. a Boeing 777
collaborative workflow simulation driven by a 128-processor Silicon
Graphics Prism(TM) system with six graphics pipes and 256GB of
memory. Taking place in the SGI, Intel and Boeing booths, the demo
recreates a Boeing factory quality control scenario to show how
multiple technologies can combine to turn a time-consuming but
essential quality control process into a seamless exchange of
information and insight - even when participants are miles apart.
The unique demonstration also incorporates SGI OpenGL Vizserver(TM)
software ensuring all demo participants can access and interact on
demand with any part of a 60GB Boeing 777 model using laptops, or
virtually any type of computer.
* Attendees will be able to see the InfiniBand fabric in action at the
SGI booth. A demonstration will incorporate high-definition video
storage and visualization of geospatial data as it is shared between
two InfiniBand fabrics across thousands of miles -- from Seattle to
at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Maryland.
* In the SGI booth, SGI will debut its new Reconfigurable Application-
Specific Computing (RASC(TM)) technology capable of increasing the
performance of certain applications by hundreds of times over
conventional systems. Demonstrations based on RASC will include 4k
frame edge detection, real-time edge detection demo with video
capture and applications to speed-up financial analytics modeling
and help investigators accelerate their searches for criminal
activity.
* Also the SGI booth, customers will discuss breakthroughs they have
achieved using SGI's award-winning computing, visualization and
storage solutions -- all of which on display in the SGI booth.
SGI's presence at SC|05 involves close collaboration with the company's show sponsors: Altair Engineering, Inc., Christie Digital Systems, Inc., Engenio Information Technologies Inc., EXEGY Inc., Intel Corp., Micron Technology, Inc., Neterion Technologies, and TRIONIQ Inc.

BOF sessions at SC|05

As in past years, SGI is taking a leading role in hosting and participating in Birds of a Feather (BOF) technical sessions. These include:

* HPC Trends in the Automotive Industry. 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. Wednesday,
Nov. 16, in Room 608-609. SGI's Christian Tanasescu will join Sharan
Kalwani from GM to discuss the automotive industry's use of HPC
technologies and the enormous opportunities for improvement.
* Open|SpeedShop: Multiplatform Open Source Performance Tool Status
and Availability. 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, in Room
615-616. Jim Galarowicz from SGI and Martin Schulz from Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory will discuss the current status of
Open|SpeedShop and the opportunities it presents to HPC application
developers and users.
* Leveraging Scalable HPC Architectures for Data-Intensive
Applications. 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, in Room 606-
607. Jill Matzke and Eric Fromm, both from SGI, will focus on some
of the unique issues associated with very large data applications
and what users are doing to handle these tough problems.
* User Experiences with the Silicon Graphics Prism. 5:15 to 6:45 p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 15 in Room 6B. In this panel session, users of Silicon
Graphics Prism(TM) systems will discuss early experiences and
accomplishments using the innovative Linux-based visualization
environment. The session is organized by the Silicon Graphics
Worldwide User Group and is hosted by Gwen Pech, Faculty, BP Center
for Visualization at the University of Colorado, and SGIUG Director
of Visualization/Chair of the Visualization Special Interest Group,
along with Gary Jensen of SGIUG.
* Customer Experiences Using the SGI Altix. 5:15 to 6:45 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 16 in Room 611-614. Altix users in this BOF panel
will discuss the management of these systems for productivity and
uptime as well as the techniques they use to achieve efficient,
scalable performance for both throughput and capability workloads.
The panel will be hosted by Terry Hewitt, Head of Research
Computing, University of Manchester and Program Chair for the SGI
User Group, and Paul White, HPC Systems Manager Computer Services
for Academic Research, CSC Supercomputing, Farnborough, UK. and
Director for Altix and Linux at the SGI User Group.
* Shared-Memory Resources on the GRID. 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. Tuesday,
Nov. 15, in Room 617. SGI's Michael Brown will chair this BOF
session with a number of speakers from major GRID facilities around
the world who will speak on their experience of including shared
memory compute resources in GRID installations.
SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is a leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding SGI technologies and third-party technologies that are subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such statements. The reader is cautioned not to rely unduly on these forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future or current performance. Such risks and uncertainties include installation and performance of hardware and software, the performance of third parties, the sustained performance of current and future products, the ability to integrate and support a complex technology solution involving multiple providers and users, and other risks detailed from time to time in the company's most recent SEC reports, including its reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, Altix, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks, and Silicon Graphics Prism, Open GL Vizserver, NUMAflex, RASC and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACT
Lisa Pistacchio
pistacchio@sgi.com
650-933-5683
SGI PR HOTLINE
650-933-7777
SGI PR FACSIMILE
650-933-0283
SOURCE SGI
Lisa Pistacchio of SGI, +1-650-933-5683, or pistacchio@sgi.com, or SGI PR HOTLINE,
+1-650-933-7777, or SGI PR FACSIMILE, +1-650-933-0283
prnewswire.com



To: MJ who wrote (14240)11/15/2005 11:04:28 AM
From: Wes  Respond to of 14451
 
Open|SpeedShop Now Available to Linux Developers

November 15, 2005 09:04:13 (ET)

SEATTLE, SC|05, Nov 15, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Culminating a year of joint development, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Silicon Graphics (SGID, Trade) today announced that an open-source version of the SGI(R) SpeedShop(TM) performance analysis tool is now available to developers.

Open|SpeedShop(TM), an open-source, multi-platform Linux(R) tool, helps developers and end users analyze the performance of applications running on single-node to large-scale IA32, IA64, EM64T and AMD64 platforms. The new open-source tool is the result of a cooperative government/industry effort to make more sophisticated open-source performance tools available to government laboratories, universities and other researchers.

At the SC|05 Conference Nov. 12-18 in Seattle, Linux application developers can attend a Birds-of-a-Feather session and ongoing demonstrations of Open|SpeedShop.

-- Birds-of-a-Feather session: 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, in
Room 615-616 of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center.
Jim Galarowicz from SGI and Martin Schulz from Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory will discuss the current status of Open|SpeedShop
and the opportunities it presents to high-performance computing (HPC)
application developers and users.
-- Live demonstrations of Open|SpeedShop: Ongoing in the SGI Booth
(No. 602) and the NNSA Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Tri-Labs
Booth (No. 402).
Developed by SGI in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories, Open|SpeedShop utilizes dynamic instrumentation technology developed at the University of Wisconsin and University of Maryland.

The tool's base functionality includes program counter sampling, exclusive and inclusive user time, CPU hardware performance counter, MPI event tracing, I/O call tracing, and floating-point exception experiments. Designed to be modular and extensible, Open|SpeedShop supports several levels of plug-ins that allow users to add their own performance experiments. The tool's infrastructure and base components are being released open source under GPL and LGPL.

Key features of the powerful open-source tool include:
-- Three modes of operation: batch, interactive command line interface,
and graphical user interface
-- Multi-platform single system image, traditional cluster, and SGI super
cluster support
-- Support for large numbers of processes, threads, and ranks
For more information or to download the developer beta version of Open|SpeedShop, visit: oss.sgi.com .

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)

SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGID, Trade), is a leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks, and SpeedShop, Open|SpeedShop and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACT
Ginny Babbitt
ginnyb@sgi.com
+1-650-933-4519
SGI PR HOTLINE
+1-650-933-7777
SGI PR FACSIMILE
+1-650-933-0283
SOURCE SGI
media, Ginny Babbitt of SGI, +1-650-933-4519, or ginnyb@sgi.com; or SGI PR HOTLINE,
+1-650-933-7777; or SGI PR FACSIMILE, +1-650-933-0283
prnewswire



To: MJ who wrote (14240)11/15/2005 2:03:12 PM
From: Wes  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 14451
 
Starbridge and SGI Accelerate FPGA Computing Solutions for Solving Grand Challenge Problems

Companies Deliver Hypercomputing(R) to Software Developers, Researchers, and Hardware Designers

SEATTLE, Super Computer 2005, Booth #1638, Nov 15, 2005 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Starbridge Systems today announced a strategic relationship with Silicon Graphics (OTC: SGID) to further accelerate algorithm computation using field- programmable gate arrays, or FPGAs. SGI will provide Starbridge's Viva(R) development software under a temporary license as part of its RASC(TM) (Reconfigurable Application-Specific Computing) development kit. The combined solution is capable of drastically decreasing compute time for computationally intensive applications over non-optimized systems. Starbridge will hold demonstrations of the collaborative system at its booth during SC|05 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking and Storage, November 12 - 18 in Seattle.
"We are very pleased to be teaming up with Starbridge to provide the tools to make the power of FPGAs accessible to software developers, researchers, and hardware designers," said Ron Renwick, Configurable Computing Product Manager, SGI. "Our relationship with Starbridge makes high-performance reconfigurable computing accessible to the entry-level user as well as the power user."

SGI RASC technology, combined with Viva, can drastically increase application performance over conventional systems, a solution that Starbridge has coined Hypercomputing. Viva unlocks the power of SGI RASC technology by allowing those that are not familiar with low-level FPGA development techniques to easily develop highly efficient, high-performance FPGA applications that run directly on SGI(R) Altix servers and Silicon Graphics(TM) Prism visualization systems equipped with SGI RASC technology.

Research institutions and government agencies have been searching for a way to rapidly accelerate large, computationally intensive applications or algorithms in order to decrease the time and expense required. FPGAs are recognized in the industry for their ability to handle millions of instructions per second in parallel fashion. However, up until now, FPGA development has required the use of low-level, text-based design languages, such as VHDL or Verilog, that were originally designed for circuitry layout rather than for high-performance or embedded computing.

Starbridge's Viva development software's graphical user interface simplifies the development of complex, supercomputer-realm applications, providing a platform for creating reusable and expandable library objects written for numerical methods.

"We are very excited that SGI chose Viva for its RASC development kit," said Kurt Dobson, CEO of Starbridge. "This is another proof-point that shows the industry has a need for a solution that accelerates the solving of complex applications and algorithms."

About Starbridge Systems: The Hypercomputing Company

Starbridge Systems is advancing FPGA-based reconfigurable computing by delivering powerful Hypercomputing systems. Hypercomputing offers significant advantages in speed with systems capable of processing complex algorithms in minutes that otherwise take months. In addition, Starbridge Viva development software provides users with a graphical, object-oriented programming tool that drastically simplifies the programming of FPGAs. Starbridge customers include such organizations as NASA, the NSA, the U.S. Air Force, the National Cancer Institute, and others. For more information, visit www.starbridgesystems.com

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click
appropriate link.
Kurt Dobson
profnet.prnewswire.com

Editorial contact
Alex Koritz
Sprout Marketing for Starbridge
alex@sproutmarketing.com
(801) 641-3808

SOURCE Starbridge Systems

CONTACT: Alex Koritz of Sprout Marketing, +1-801-641-3808, alex@sproutmarketing.com, for
Starbridge

URL: prnewswire.com
starbridgesystems.com
www.prnewswire.com



To: MJ who wrote (14240)11/15/2005 2:10:26 PM
From: Wes  Respond to of 14451
 
See the ALTIX 4000 at:

sgi.com