Encore plans MPP shift to Alpha

Electronic News, Nov 16, 1992 by Craig Stedman

BOSTON--Encore Computer plans to shift its new massively parallel Infinity 90 commercial system from Motorola's 88000 to Digital Equipment Corp.'s Alpha AXP architecture, which beat out the PowerPC technology IBM and Motorola are developing in part as an 88K follow-on.

Encore also is mulling a possible OEM deal under which it would resell some of DEC's Alpha AXP systems as replacements for its Encore 91 and 93 real-time machines, which also use the 88K. Further development of the 91 and 93 isn't certain as a result, executives said.

The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., firm now wants to aim most of its resources at the Infinity 90. That system--just in the early shipment stage--is seen as having more growth potential than the Gould-derived real-time business accounting for the bulk of Encore's current sales.

Thomas Zender, vice president of corporate product management, said it would probably be 18 to 24 months before the Alpha-based Infinity 90 is ready. He added, though, that a formal R&D schedule hasn't been put in place yet "because this whole agreement is very new."

Encore's agreement with DEC also calls for it to first do four technical projects related to the Alpha architecture, Mr. Zender noted. Included are reference ports of Unix System V.4 and Oracle 7.0 for Unix, plus development of a memory channel and Unix-oriented clustering technology.

"Our first order of business is to deliver the four core technologies to DEC, and we'll be very busy doing that," he said. Encore expects "some exchange of resources" in connection with the work, but details are still being discussed with DEC.

Within the Infinity 90, a transaction and data processing engine supporting thousands of processors, the Alpha devices will initially be used as the main computing units, Mr. Zender said. The 88K would continue to be used at first for I/O and datacom processing, but a future goal is to move Alpha also into those functions.

Encore--using the 88100 in the first Infinity 90 release--may still do an 88110 version as a prelude to the Alpha design. Mr. Zender said the 88110 is being evaluated now to determine whether it yields an acceptable price/performance ratio.

The company looked at all of the available RISC architectures before settling on Alpha, with PowerPC apparently the closest contender. "Obviously, to preserve our investments we gave serious consideration to what follows the 88K family, but we think Alpha is the best of the bunch," Mr. Zender said.

While raw performance was a factor, perhaps of greater importance was a perceived lead for Alpha in supporting large-scale systems like the Infinity 90. "It's clear it's the fastest chip, but it's also clear it has the best hooks and handles for scaling, and that's what we do," noted Encore chairman and CEO Kenneth Fisher.

Encore is the fifth major systems vendor to sign up as an Alpha customer. Cray Research is developing an Alpha-based MPP machine that DEC may end up reselling (see page), and others using the architecture include Olivetti, Kubota Pacific Computer and Raytheon.

Talks are now scheduled to intensify over a possible OEM deal in which Encore would resell DEC's Alpha AXP systems with added real-time hardware and software. "We may have the discussions and decide not to do it, but we are going to evaluate it," Mr. Zender said.

Development of new 88110-based models of the four-processor Encore 91 and the 32-CPU 93 is "uncertain" as a result, he added. Encore plans to stay in the real-time market and still views the 91 and 93 as "very important," but its main focus now "is very much on the Infinity products."