Cray-4
Encyclopedia
The Cray-4 was intended to be Cray Computer Corporation's successor to the failed Cray-3
supercomputer
. It was marketed to compete with the T90
from Cray Research. CCC went bankrupt in 1995 before any Cray-4 had been delivered.
was the first major application of gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors in computing
. It was not considered a success, and only one Cray-3 was delivered. Seymour Cray
moved on to the Cray-4 design, announcing the design in 1994.
The Cray-4 was essentially a shrunk and speed-up version of the Cray-3, and it consisted of a number of vector processors attached to a fast memory. The Cray-3 supported from four to sixteen processors running at 474 MHz, while the Cray-4 scaled from four to sixty-four processors running at 1 GHz. The final packaging for the Cray-4 was intended to fit into 1 cubic foot (0.028316847 m³), and was to be tested in the smaller one-CPU "tanks" from the Cray-3. A "midrange" system included 16 processors, 1,024 megawords (8192 MB) of memory and provided 32 gigaflops for $11 million .
The local memory architecture used on the Cray-2 and Cray-3 was dropped, returning to the mass of B- and T- registers on earlier designs, owing to Seymour's lack of success using the local memory effectively.
Cray-3
The Cray-3 was a vector supercomputer intended to be Cray Research's successor to the Cray-2. The system was to be the first major application of gallium arsenide semiconductors in computing. The project was not considered a success, and the parent company in Minneapolis decided to end work on the...
supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
. It was marketed to compete with the T90
Cray T90
The Cray T90 series was the last of a line of vector processing supercomputers manufactured by Cray Research, Inc, superseding the Cray C90 series...
from Cray Research. CCC went bankrupt in 1995 before any Cray-4 had been delivered.
Design
The earlier Cray-3Cray-3
The Cray-3 was a vector supercomputer intended to be Cray Research's successor to the Cray-2. The system was to be the first major application of gallium arsenide semiconductors in computing. The project was not considered a success, and the parent company in Minneapolis decided to end work on the...
was the first major application of gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors in computing
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
. It was not considered a success, and only one Cray-3 was delivered. Seymour Cray
Seymour Cray
Seymour Roger Cray was an American electrical engineer and supercomputer architect who designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades, and founded Cray Research which would build many of these machines. Called "the father of supercomputing," Cray has been credited...
moved on to the Cray-4 design, announcing the design in 1994.
The Cray-4 was essentially a shrunk and speed-up version of the Cray-3, and it consisted of a number of vector processors attached to a fast memory. The Cray-3 supported from four to sixteen processors running at 474 MHz, while the Cray-4 scaled from four to sixty-four processors running at 1 GHz. The final packaging for the Cray-4 was intended to fit into 1 cubic foot (0.028316847 m³), and was to be tested in the smaller one-CPU "tanks" from the Cray-3. A "midrange" system included 16 processors, 1,024 megawords (8192 MB) of memory and provided 32 gigaflops for $11 million .
The local memory architecture used on the Cray-2 and Cray-3 was dropped, returning to the mass of B- and T- registers on earlier designs, owing to Seymour's lack of success using the local memory effectively.