Mercury Computer Systems Announces 120-Gigaflop System to Meet Demands of Expanding Signal Processing Market

Business Wire, Sept 15, 1997

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 15, 1997--

New Embedded System Provides Biggest Punch per Cubic Foot

and Watt with Over 1000 Processors and 6.4 GB/sec I/O

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. today introduced the RACE(R) Series MultiPort(TM) family of heterogeneous high-performance computer systems at the ICSPAT/DSP World Expo '97. Supporting more than 1,000 SHARC or PowerPC processors in a single logical system and utilizing the RACEway Interlink switched fabric interconnect, the MultiPort family provides more than 12 GFLOPS per cubic foot of processing power for embedded applications. Early orders are now being taken for use in Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and signal intelligence applications, to name a few.

Today's announcement fulfilled Mercury's strategic promise, made at the 1997 DSP World Spring Design Conference, to provide a RACE multicomputer system with an aggregate bandwidth of up to 6.4 GBytes per second. This is made possible by Mercury's quad-port technology, which provides four individual RACEway I/O channels on a single 9U board.

"As sensor technology and processing algorithm complexity continue to increase, the reconnaissance market demands ever-increasing computer performance," said Jay Bertelli, president and CEO of Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. "Mercury's intense commitment to research and development has enabled us to meet these demands with the MultiPort family's scalable, heterogeneous processing power."

The MultiPort Series includes the MP-410 system and the MP-420 expansion unit. The MP-410 system is the base configuration and includes a host computer and heterogeneous combinations of SHARC DSP and PowerPC RISC processors. A typical entry-level system configuration includes 384 SHARC processors and 22 PowerPCs, providing a performance of approximately 50 GFLOPs.

In a larger configuration, up to three MP-420 expansion units can be added to the base MP-410 system to support additional quad-port boards. With the ability to add processing and I/O capability in small increments, combined with the ability to choose the best processor type, developers are able to configure their systems to match precisely the requirements of their application. An MP-420 configuration for a modest SAR application includes 200 SHARC processors with 20 Power PCs, while for an advanced STAP application the configuration includes 1000 SHARC and 20 PowerPC processors with an aggregate bandwidth of 160 GBytes per second and a performance of 120 GFLOPS.

The MultiPort systems are supported by Mercury's MC/OSTM runtime environment, providing consistent interfaces for the various processing components and I/O devices across several MultiPort units. With Mercury's software tools, Parallel Application System (PAST) and PeakWare(TM) for RACE software tools and its extensive scientific algorithm library (SALT) of more than 400 routines, the new systems provide a comprehensive development environment for the most advanced applications.

"The MultiPort Series is designed to meet the demands of advanced applications that require supercomputer power in restricted space, such as airborne, shipborne, or mobile platforms," said Barry Isenstein, vice president of advanced technology. "A major focus of our core technology investment is providing leading-edge customers with the ability to stay ahead of their competition. This, in turn, maintains our own position as the leader in high-performance signal processing systems."

Mercury Computer Systems designs and manufactures special purpose computers for reconstructing the images in medical diagnostic systems such as Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Digital X-ray. Mercury's computers are also used in defense electronics, providing processing power for the latest generation radar and sonar systems. Recently the company entered the entertainment market with several applications in broadcast, cable and post-production.

With headquarters in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, the company has over 300 employees serving customers in North America, Europe and Asia through a network of subsidiaries and distributors. -0- RACE(R) Series MultiPort(TM) Systems Profile

System Size: Scalable from the entry-level MP-410 with 18 processors to larger configurations with the MP-420 with over 1000 processors

Processors: Analog Devices SHARC(TM) DSP Motorola PowerPC(TM)

Operating Software: MC/OS(TM), providing a single API model in a heterogeneous platform, and support for standard APIs to facilitate application development

Software Tools: Parallel Application System (PAST), PeakWare(TM) for RACE, Scientific Algorithm Library (SAL(TM)) -0- RACE is a registered trademark, and RACE Series MultiPort, PAS, SAL,, and MC/OS are trademarks of Mercury Computer Systems Inc., PeakWare is a trademark of MATRA SYSTEMES & INFORMATION. SHARC is a trademark of Analog Devices Inc., and PowerPC is a trademark of IBM Corp. -0- Visit Mercury on the WWW at http://www.mc.com