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 i ...

'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 ...

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

(EV5)

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

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

DRAM Dram, DRAM, or drams may refer to: Technology and engineering * Dram (unit), a unit of mass and volume, and an informal name for a small amount of liquor, especially whisky or whiskey * Dynamic random-access memory, a type of electronic semicondu ...

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 later 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 layers fo ...

/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 The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

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 running a

computational science Computational science, also known as scientific computing, technical computing or scientific computation (SC), is a division of science, and more specifically the Computer Sciences, which uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and s ...

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, 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 memo ...

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

Inside Cray T3E-900 Serial Number 6702, (link to updated copy)

{{Cray computers Computer-related introductions in 1995 T3e Supercomputers

See also

References

External links