The Cray T3E was

Cray Research Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed ...

's second-generation

massively parallel Massively parallel is the term for using a large number of computer processors (or separate computers) to simultaneously perform a set of coordinated computations in parallel. GPUs are massively parallel architecture with tens of thousands of th ...

supercomputer architecture, launched in late November 1995. The first T3E was installed at the

Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) is a high performance computing and networking center founded in 1986 and one of the original five NSF Supercomputing Centers.

in 1996. Like the previous

Cray T3D The T3D (''Torus, 3-Dimensional'') was Cray Research's first attempt at a massively parallel supercomputer architecture. Launched in 1993, it also marked Cray's first use of another company's microprocessor. The T3D consisted of between 32 and 204 ...

, it was a fully distributed memory machine using a 3D torus topology interconnection network. The T3E initially used the DEC

Alpha 21164 The Alpha 21164, also known by its code name, EV5, is a microprocessor developed and fabricated by Digital Equipment Corporation that implemented the Alpha instruction set architecture (ISA). It was introduced in January 1995, succeeding the Alp ...

(EV5)

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...

and was designed to scale from 8 to 2,176 ''Processing Elements'' (PEs). Each PE had between 64 MB and 2 GB of

DRAM Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxid ...

and a 6-way interconnect router with a payload bandwidth of 480 MB/s in each direction. Unlike many other MPP systems, including the T3D, the T3E was fully self-hosted and ran the

UNICOS UNICOS is a range of Unix and after it Linux operating system (OS) variants developed by Cray for its supercomputers. UNICOS is the successor of the Cray Operating System (COS). It provides network clustering and source code compatibility lay ...

/mk

distributed operating system A distributed operating system is system software over a collection of independent software, networked, communicating, and physically separate computational nodes. They handle jobs which are serviced by multiple CPUs. Each individual node holds a ...

with a ''GigaRing'' I/O subsystem integrated into the torus for network, disk and tape I/O. The original T3E (retrospectively known as the T3E-600) had a 300 MHz processor clock. Later variants, using the faster 21164A (EV56) processor, comprised the T3E-900 (450 MHz), T3E-1200 (600 MHz), T3E-1200E (with improved memory and interconnect performance) and T3E-1350 (675 MHz). The T3E was available in both air-cooled (''AC'') and liquid-cooled (''LC'') configurations. AC systems were available with 16 to 128 user PEs, LC systems with 64 to 2048 user PEs. A 1480-processor T3E-1200 was the first supercomputer to achieve a performance of more than 1

teraflops In computing, floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate mea ...

running a

computational science Computational science, also known as scientific computing or scientific computation (SC), is a field in mathematics that uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and solve complex problems. It is an area of science that spans many disc ...

application, in 1998. After Cray Research was acquired by

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

in February 1996, development of new Alpha-based systems was stopped. While providing the -900, -1200 and -1200E upgrades to the T3E, in the long term Silicon Graphics intended Cray T3E users to migrate to the

Origin 3000 The Origin 3000 and the Onyx 3000 is a family of mid-range and high-end computers developed and manufactured by SGI. The Origin 3000 is a server, and the Onyx 3000 is a visualization system. Both systems were introduced in July 2000 to succeed t ...

, a MIPS-based

distributed shared memory In computer science, distributed shared memory (DSM) is a form of memory architecture where physically separated memories can be addressed as a single shared address space. The term "shared" does not mean that there is a single centralized memor ...

computer, introduced in 2000. However, the T3E continued in production after SGI sold the Cray business the same year.Cray Sells First T3E-1350 Supercomputer to PhillipsPetroleum.
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References

External links

Top500 description of T3E

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20030129031218/http://www.arsc.edu/support/news/T3Enews/misc/perf1200.html ''Performance Analysis of the CRAY T3E-1200E'', Edward Anderson, Lockheed Martin Services Inc., 1999, (link to archived copy)] {{Cray computers Computer-related introductions in 1995 Cray products, T3e Supercomputers

See also

References

External links