【NEC】SX-4

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
  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

  
SX-4