NEC rolled out the SX-4 series of supercomputers worldwide in November 1994. The SX-4 series featured a maximum vector performance of 1 teraFLOPS (one trillion floating-point operations in one second). These supercomputers were able to offer both extraordinary performance and affordability by using CMOS and parallel processing technologies.
- Features of the SX-4:
- (1) In the maximum configuration of 512 parallel CPUs, each capable of 2 gigaFLOPS, the SX-4 could reach a vector performance of an incredible 1 teraFLOPS. This was the result of high-density ultra-fast CMOS LSIs, with 0.35-micron geometry and about four million transistors, and high-speed 4 Mbit synchronized SRAM.
- (2) The scalable, parallel supercomputer provided straightforward system expansion with a 1000-fold performance range from 1 gigaFLOPS to 1 teraFLOPS.
- (3) The SX-4 slashed power consumption and installation space to as little as one-tenth of previous models by using cheaper CMOS technology and by using air-cooling throughout the system.
| List of SX-4 components | Multinode model | |
|---|---|---|
| Max. number of nodes | 1 | 16 |
| Max. number of CPUs | 32 | 512 |
| Max. vector performance | 64gigaFLOPS | 1teraFLOPS |
| Main memory capacity | 8GB | 128GB |
| Max. expansion memory capacity | 32GB | 384GB |
| Max. transfer speed between nodes | — | 128GB/s |
