SYSTEMS
Mercury Computer Systems Brings the Cell BE Processor to the Workstation
Mercury's Latest Cell BE Processor-Based Offering Enables Supercomputer-Like Performance for Rendering, Imaging, and Other Compute-Intensive Applications -- Mercury Computer Systems announced the Mercury Cell Accelerator Board (CAB), its latest Cell Broadband Engine (BE) processor-based product offering, at SIGGRAPH 2006. The Mercury CAB is the first product with Cell Technology for commercially available PC workstations. "We have been actively working with customers to migrate data-intensive applications to the Cell BE processor since late last year," said Randy Dean, Vice President, Business and Technology Development at Mercury. "With the CAB, customers can achieve supercomputer-like performance right inside their workstation." Featuring the Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage, the CAB is designed to deliver an unprecedented 180 GFLOPS of performance in a PCI Express ATX form factor suitable for compute-intensive applications such as rendering, ray tracing, video and image processing, and signal processing.
The CAB extends the portfolio of Mercury Cell BE processor-based products, including the BladeCenter-compatible Dual Cell-Based Blade, the 1U Blade Server, and the highly rugged and deployable PowerBlock 200 product -- each of which offers a Cell BE processor-based solution. When deploying the CAB, customers can leverage the Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage, including available software development tools and libraries such as the MultiCore Framework (MCF), optimized Scientific Algorithm Library (SAL), and the Mercury Trace Analysis Tool and Library (TATL). As with Mercury's other Cell BE processor-based offerings, the CAB supports Linux via a Yellow Dog Linux BSP (board support package) from Terra Soft Solutions. The Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage The Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage employs sophisticated middleware that abstracts hardware capabilities and manages the distribution of data across multiple computing elements working in tandem. By leveraging the MultiCore Plus Advantage from Mercury, customers can benefit from patented cooling technologies, lightweight system-on-chip (SoC) management software, multicore implementations of key algorithms, visualization tools designed for clusters, algorithm tuning, and more. Prototypes of the Mercury CAB are now available in limited volumes. Production availability is planned for the first quarter of calendar 2007. Pricing for the Mercury Cell Accelerator Board starts at US$7,999 for a single board, with discounts available on higher volumes. The Cell Workstation Development System includes a CAB, high-end dual-processor Opteron workstation running Linux and Windows, and the Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage software. Contact Mercury for pricing information. For more information on the Mercury CAB, visit Mercury at SIGGRAPH 2006, Booth #828, Hall A; visit its Web site; or contact Mercury at 866-627-6951.
The CAB extends the portfolio of Mercury Cell BE processor-based products, including the BladeCenter-compatible Dual Cell-Based Blade, the 1U Blade Server, and the highly rugged and deployable PowerBlock 200 product -- each of which offers a Cell BE processor-based solution. When deploying the CAB, customers can leverage the Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage, including available software development tools and libraries such as the MultiCore Framework (MCF), optimized Scientific Algorithm Library (SAL), and the Mercury Trace Analysis Tool and Library (TATL). As with Mercury's other Cell BE processor-based offerings, the CAB supports Linux via a Yellow Dog Linux BSP (board support package) from Terra Soft Solutions. The Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage The Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage employs sophisticated middleware that abstracts hardware capabilities and manages the distribution of data across multiple computing elements working in tandem. By leveraging the MultiCore Plus Advantage from Mercury, customers can benefit from patented cooling technologies, lightweight system-on-chip (SoC) management software, multicore implementations of key algorithms, visualization tools designed for clusters, algorithm tuning, and more. Prototypes of the Mercury CAB are now available in limited volumes. Production availability is planned for the first quarter of calendar 2007. Pricing for the Mercury Cell Accelerator Board starts at US$7,999 for a single board, with discounts available on higher volumes. The Cell Workstation Development System includes a CAB, high-end dual-processor Opteron workstation running Linux and Windows, and the Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage software. Contact Mercury for pricing information. For more information on the Mercury CAB, visit Mercury at SIGGRAPH 2006, Booth #828, Hall A; visit its Web site; or contact Mercury at 866-627-6951.