【Fujitsu】FUJITSU AP3000

The Fujitsu AP3000 was a scalar-parallel supercomputer. Instead of using vector processing units, the AP3000 derived its high-speed performance from its distributed-memory parallel server construction that gave superb performance scalability by linking general-purpose workstations together with a high-speed network. Fujitsu announced the AP3000 in March 1996 as the successor to the AP1000, a supercomputer that operated on the same principle. The AP3000’s most distinctive feature was the newly developed high-speed AP-NET communication network, which linked as many as 1,024 nodes, where each node was a workstation with a 64-bit UltraSPARC architecture. AP-NET was a network with a 2D torus topology and was built with routing controller LSIs that relayed messages.

Features of the AP-NET:
(1) High-speed data transfers on the order of 200 MB/s per port
(2) Wormhole routing
(3) Two-way virtual communication channels
(4) Barrier synchronization between nodes
(5) RAS functions
Specifications of the Fujitsu AP3000
Introduced March 1996
No. of nodes 4 — 1024
Node types Three (U140, U170, U200)
Memory capacity 128 MB — 2 TB
Internal disk capacity 8.4 GB — 4.2 TB
Node-connecting network AT-Net (200 MB/s, bidirectional)
External network interfaces Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, FDDI, ATM, etc.
Connectable peripheral devices Disk arrays, tape libraries, etc.
Operating system Solaris, Japanese edition
Node performance specifications
Node type U140 U170 U200
No. of CPUs 1 1 — 2
Processing element UltraSPARC
(64 bits, 143 MHz)
UltraSPARC
(64 bits, 167 MHz)
UltraSPARC
(64 bits, 200 MHz)
Cache memory per CPU Internal:32KB
External:512KB
Internal:32KB
External:1MB
Internal 32MB — 1GB 64MB — 1GB 64MB — 2GB
Internal disk capacity 2.1GB — 4.2GB 4.2GB

The specifications above were correct at the time the products were announced. Some specifications were later revised due to product upgrades.


  
FUJITSU AP3000