[comp.ai.digest] Sandia/Parallel Processing

cross@cs1.wsu.EDU (George Cross) (03/23/88)

Anybody know what this is?

Business Week, March 28, 1988 P 75, Developments to Watch

"The Speed of a Cray at a Tenth of the Price"

... [paragraph explaining parallel processing omitted]

Now computer researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in
Albuquerque have developed a formula, or algorithm, that does the
trick [to divide up a program so that parallel processors don't get
in each other's way].  Using a $2.2 million computer with 1,024
processors from Ncube in Beaverton, Ore., Sandia has solved certain
real-life problems up to 1,020 times quicker than a single processor
and, in one case, even faster than a $20 million Cray Supercomputer.
Sandia says the algorithm should be adaptable to similar computers
designed by Intel Systems, Floating Point Systems, and Bolt Beranek &
Newman.  "We've found a way to tailor problems for parallel
processing," says Edwin H. Barsis, Sandia's director of computer
science.