DEVELOPER TOOLS

With the acquisition of an Silicon Graphics Inc. Altix 3000 system, ORNL scientists will have another powerful resource to analyze large sets of data and perform other research vital to science. The new system features 256 just released Intel Itanium2 processors, 2 terabytes of global shared memory and 1.5 teraflops of computational power. A teraflop is equal to 1 trillion calculations per second. The huge amount of shared memory greatly simplifies the task of a single user gaining access to large amounts of memory. ORNL plans to use the new installation to drive a new class of applications -– including advanced computational biology, environmental research and climate simulations -– that generate exceptionally large and complex data sets. Researchers expect to take delivery of the system in August. DOE's Office of Science is providing the funding.