DEC, Intel near parallel deal

Electronic News, May 11, 1992 by Craig Stedman

BOSTON -- Digital Equipment Corp. and Intel Corp. last week completed a tentative agreement for DEC to build systems around Intel's i860-based massively parallel processing architecture, although DEC also confirmed that it plans to market an MPP machine using its own Alpha RISC technology within three years.

The Alpha plans make it somewhat uncertain how long DEC would actively sell both the upcoming i860-based systems and an existing MPP series bought from MasPar Computer Corp., acknowledged Charles Wilson, manager of the company's massively parallel systems group.

"With an Alpha-based system being two to three years out, it's hard to say what our product line is going to be like after that," Mr. Wilson said. "We're committed to supporting these (other) machines for the long term, but things could change over time."

While much of DEC's MPP R&D budget is focused on software, it already is increasing the amount of hardware work done internally. The company will use its own peripherals, networking devices and cabinets for the i860-based machines, instead of buying full systems from Intel, and a similar approach is being adopted on the MasPar side, Mr. Wilson said.

The i860 systems and future machines using MasPar's custom four-bit processors will both be packaged in a single DEC enclosure, he indicated. The first MasPar implementations under the new format should be ready in July or August, with i860 versions following before the end of the year.

The change will let DEC utilize its own storage products in the MPP machines and should also be less expensive than buying finished systems from the other two vendors, Mr. Wilson said. In addition, the company hopes to bring system reliability in line "more with what our commercial customers believe you should have."

DEC has yet to decide whether it would develop the Alpha-based MPP system itself or try to enlist either Intel or MasPar to help, Mr. Wilson noted. Their experience in interconnecting multiple processors "may make us go with an existing hardware partner," he said, although it's unclear whether those two companies would be interested in taking part.

Mr. Wilson also emphasized that DEC plans to implement a common software environment for all three MPP architectures, from the compiler level to the OSF/1 operating system. That should enable applications to be moved among the different hardware platforms through recompiling.

The letter of intent to buy the i860-based MPP technology from Intel is scheduled to be formally disclosed this week. Mr. Wilson said it could still take until September to complete the deal, which has been under negotiation for more than eight months already (EN, Sept. 30, 1991).

DEC and Intel last month signed a related agreement to do joint software R&D work in the MPP area, initially involving a high-performance parallel Fortran compiler (EN, April 6). The two companies confirmed then for the first time that an OEM deal was also being discussed.

As expected, DEC initially would utilize the technology from Intel's lower-end ipsc860 MPP line. However, Mr. Wilson said it eventually will also get access to the architecture used in Intel's new high-end Paragon system, perhaps by late spring or early summer of 1993.

DEC typically will market machines costing $5 million or less to commercial accounts, while Intel's supercomputer systems division would focus on large research and scientific installations. A full MPP software suite isn't likely to be ready until early 1994, though, Mr. Wilson said.

Intel uses a so-called MIMD, or multiple-instruction, multiple-data, architecture that can run multiple data streams simultaneously, as opposed to the SIMD approach taken by MasPar in which a single data stream is sent to all nodes.