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Table of Contents | Features: NEC'S NEW FASTEST SUPER - 65 TFLOPS NEC Corporation announced the worldwide launch and availability of the SX series model "SX-8," the world's most powerful vector supercomputer wit h a peak processing performance of 65TFLOPS (TFLOPS: one trillion floati ng point operations per second). Inheriting vector architecture, whose excellent sustained performance has been demonstrated by the Earth Simulator, the new product combines enha nced CPUs, and memory and I/O processing performance. A further-enhanced , single-chip, vector processor, realized by the SX-6, also contributes to the greatly improved price performance and space saving offered by th e SX-8. The SX-8, with its dedicated CPUs, large-scale memory, and high data tran sfer rate between memory and CPUs, delivers much higher sustained perfor mance than scalar supercomputers with a number of general-purpose CPUs. This is particularly effective in fields that require large-scale and ul tra high-speed computing of massive data, such as meteorological forecas ting, environmental simulations and automotive crash analysis. Pipelines of the vector unit, the central part of a vector processor, operate at a 2GHz clock frequency, which is double the speed of the SX-6, and realize a peak vector performance of 16GFLOPS per CPU. Moreover, hardware support of the vector square root operation achieves a sustained performance six times higher than that of the SX-6. This was achieved by applying high-density packaging technology in which processor and memory are implemented on a single module. By utilizing GFS, users can access the shared files with a high performance close to that of a local disc, and can also take advantage of the high performance functions of GFS from third party platforms such as SUN and HP as they do with NFS (Network File System). The monthly rental price of the SX-8 starts from approximately US $11,000 , and shipment will commence in December 2004. NEC aims to achieve worldwide sales of more than 700 SX-8 units for the n ext three years. In 1983, NEC entered the market of supercomputers with the launch of SX-2, whose performance exceeded 1GFLOPS for the first tim e ever, to meet the needs of ultra high-speed scientific computation. Si nce then, NEC has received over 700 orders across the SX series for thei r high sustained performance and excellent price performance. Supercomputers have been utilized for various fields including the develo pment of advanced technology such as functional device materials with na notechnology, large-scale scientific computing and simulation for energy development such as nuclear fusion, aeronautics and space development, and engineering such as automotive design and development of electronic products. Recently, while the scale of the problems to be solved becomes larger, a reduction in the development period is ever increasingly desired. Requir ements for increase in speed of problem analysis, design, and optimizati on, have also become more demanding, leading to the need for faster supe rcomputers. To respond to these needs, NEC has developed the new vector supercomputer , which boasts greatly improved operating and price performance in compa rison with scalar servers that are used for large-scale and large-capaci ty scientific computing. Please refer to the appendix for the specifications of the SX-8. About NEC Corporation NEC Corporation is one of the world's leading providers of Internet, broa dband network and enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its diverse and global base of customers. Ranked a s one of the world's top patent- producing companies, NEC delivers tailo red solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron dev ices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks, and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC Electronics Corpo ration. The NEC Group employs more than 140,000 people worldwide and had net sales of 4,906 billion yen (approx.
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