wm@ogccse.ogc.edu (Wm Leler) (10/08/88)
COGENT RESEARCH DELIVERS
PARALLEL SUPERCOMPUTER IN "PC PACKAGE"
Beaverton, Oregon -- October 3, 1988 -- Cogent Research, Inc. today
introduced a modular parallel processing supercomputer that can be
user-configured to provide over 45 MFLOPs (millions of floating point
operations per second) and 150 VAX MIPs (millions of instructions per
second) in a PC-sized package.
Called the XTM, Cogent's Transputer-based desktop hardware can be
reconfigured from 2 to 400 processors to provide a wide range of
processing, user interface and input/output capabilities. The XTM also
employs the Linda software environment developed at Yale University.
"The Linda environment truly represents a technology breakthrough. In
a single stroke, it eliminates many of the software hurdles that have
limited widespread acceptance of parallel processing," said Charles
Vollum, Cogent's president and co-founder. "Users can invoke Linda by
adding four simple statements to familiar programming languages. They
can choose the language best suited to their application -- LISP for
AI, Ada for embedded systems, Fortran for scientific programs, C and
C++ for systems work."
By providing automatic task allocation and automatic process
synchronization, Linda frees the programmer from dealing with the
details of the underlying hardware. This significantly reduces
development time and results in programs that can run without change on
many different architectures with varying numbers of processors.
Unix library compatibility allows straightforward porting of existing
sequential software. Parallel applications developed on the XTM are
easily portable: Linda implementations exist on such systems as the
Sequent Balance and Symmetry, Encore Multimax and Intel iPSC.
The XTM's dynamically reconfigurable architecture is achieved via a
unique parallel bus structure and intelligent switch, which Cogent is
patenting. The bus structure provides high-speed communication between
processors and takes advantage of the transputer's built-in
communication links.
Each XTM contains two INMOS T800-20 transputers, VLSI microprocessors
with enhanced RISC instruction sets, 4 Kbytes of on-chip RAM, links for
point-to-point communications to other transputers, and 4 Mbytes of
local RAM. The T800-20 has a throughput of 5 MIPs/1.5 MFLOPs.
The XTM's extensible architecture employs high-speed fiber optic
interconnects that allow computation and storage resources to be
efficiently shared regardless of their physical location.
"The XTM is general purpose enough to span a broad range of
applications," commented Vollum. "It's particularly well-suited for
financial and scientific data analysis, transaction processing, image
and signal processing, commercial graphics, factory automation,
modeling and simulation -- from neural networks to environmental
studies."
Pricing, which is dependent on configuration, starts at $19,800 for a
two-processor system with three MFLOPs and 10 MIPs. A 30-processor
system with 45 MFLOPs and 150 MIPs sells for $225,300. Many
configurations are available. The XTM is available immediately.
Cogent Research, founded in August 1986, is located in the Oregon
Graduate Center Science Park at 1100 NW Compton Drive, Beaverton,
OR 9706-6998, (503) 690-1450.
____________________
LindaBus is a trademark of Cogent Research, Inc.
VAX is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation
Transputer is a trademark of Inmos Corporation
Balance and Symmetry are trademarks of Sequent Computer Systems, Inc
Multimax is a trademark of Encore Computer Corporation
iPSC is a trademark of Intel Corporation
Technical Overview - Linda
Linda is based on the use of tuples, or collections of related data.
Elements of a tuple are fields that contain actual values, or formals.
These tuples exist in an abstract space called a tuple space, which can
span multiple processors. Processes exchange messages by adding or
removing tuples from tuples space.
Linda is implemented in conventional programming through the addition
of four new statements. These are: in, rd, out, and eval. In removes
a tuple from tuple space for use by a process. Rd is similar to in
except it reads the data in the tuple without removing it from tuple
space. The out operation creates a passive tuple and places it into
tuple space. Finally, eval creates an active tuple, one that evaluates
its data upon entry into the tuple space and is then available for
consumption or reading by other active tuples.
To run a Linda program, an active tuple is dropped into tuple space
where it can create other active tuples. The active tuples, which are
executing simultaneously, exchange data by generating, reading and
consuming passive tuples. An active tuple that is finished executing
becomes a passive tuple.
Technical Overview - Lindabus
The Lindabus (patent pending) communications strategy is a hybrid
architecture consisting of a parallel bus and an intelligent switch.
In the XTM, processors have access to two types of communication: via a
32-bit parallel bus and through the Transputer's high speed serial
links. A processor places a connection request on the 32-bit parallel
bus, where it is received by the switch controller. The controller
then connects the requesting processor and the supplying processor via
their high speed serial links. The result is that any processor enjoys
direct connection with any other processor within an XTM system. The
parallel bus can also be used for broadcast/multicast communication by
the processors.