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GERMANY'S FZJ SELECTS CRAY XD1 FOR SYSTEM EVALUATION

Cray Inc. announced that Germany's Research Center Juelich (FZJ) has selected a Cray XD1 supercomputer for advanced scientific research and to evaluate its potential as a future leadership-class system.

A 72-processor system with peak performance of 317 billion calculations per second (gigaflops) will be installed later this month at FZJ's Central Institute for Applied Mathematics facility in Juelich, Germany.

The Cray XD1 system will support advanced research across a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines, including system biology, astrophysics and material science. FZJ will also evaluate the Cray XD1 system as an FPGA-based heterogeneous computing platform.

Thomas Lippert, director of the Central Institute for Applied Mathematics, said, "We are impressed with the new Cray XD1 supercomputer. We look forward to making it available to our user community and to assessing its potential to meet our large-scale computing needs. Cray has been a trusted partner of ours for two decades."

"We are pleased to be augmenting the long-term relationship between FZJ and Cray, which dates back to the installation of a Cray X-MP system in 1984. FZJ has a sterling reputation for scientific leadership in Germany and around the world," said Ulla Thiel, vice president of Cray Europe. "With the Cray XD1 system, FZJ researchers will be able to access a Cray high performance system of the latest generation."

The new Cray XD1 high-bandwidth supercomputer has had strong market momentum since the product began shipping to Europe in November 2004. Recently announced orders include Helmut Schmidt University and Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB).

The Cray XD1 system is rapidly winning cluster converts worldwide for its ability to provide superior application performance to HPC users needing smaller, yet high bandwidth HPC systems. Together, the Cray XD1 supercomputer, the recently announced, Red Storm-based Cray XT3 massively parallel supercomputer, and the Cray X1 system constitute the world's most comprehensive and capable lineup of high performance computing (HPC) products.

More About the Cray XD1 Supercomputer

The Cray XD1 supercomputer features the direct connect processor (DCP) architecture, which removes PCI bottlenecks and memory contention to deliver superior sustained performance. The Cray XD1 system has the lowest latency of any current HPC system, with MPI latency of 1.8 microseconds in measured tests conducted using the Ohio State MPI benchmark. The Linux/Opteron system runs x86 32/64-bit codes. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are available to accelerate applications, and the Active Manager subsystem provides single system command and control and high availability features.

About the Research Center Juelich (FZJ)

The Research Centre Juelich (Forschungszentrum Juelich) includes more than 40 institutes, employs a staff of 4,200 and annually hosts more than 700 visiting scientists from some 50 nations. From materials science and nuclear physics to electronics, biology and medicine, FZJ advanced research activities span a wide range of contemporary disciplines. FZJ's Central Institute for Applied Mathematics (ZAM) provides IT tools, methods and expertise for the Research Centre Juelich and is responsible for the campus-wide computer networks and communication systems. As part of the John von Neumann Institute for Computing, ZAM operates Germany's most powerful supercomputer.

About Cray Inc.

As the global leader in high performance computing (HPC), Cray provides innovative supercomputing systems that enable scientists and engineers in government, industry and academia to meet both existing and future computational challenges. Building on years of experience in designing, developing, marketing and servicing the world's most advanced supercomputers, Cray offers a comprehensive portfolio of HPC systems that deliver unrivaled sustained performance on a wide range of applications. Go to http://www.cray.com for more information.