Networkable multiprocessor daughtercard

Sky Computers (Chelmsford, MA) recently introduced the Excalibur 333 microprocessor daughtercard. One Excalibur 333 configured on a 6U VME motherboard delivers 2.66 GFlops of performance. Four Excalibur 333 daughtercards on a 9U VME motherboard deliver 10.66 GFlops, with total performance in a single VME chassis of 170 GFlops. Each Excalibur 333 includes four PowerPC 604e microprocessors which sustain memory bandwidth at 667MB/sec and execute complex FFT (memory to memory) in 174 µs.

The Excalibur 333 uses a 320MB/sec SKYchannel for connection to the motherboard in SKYbolt II 6U and 9U VME application accelerators, the SKYstation II desktop accelerator, and the SKYpack compact embedded system. Up to 256 VME boards can be connected in a single SKYchannel system, enabling up to 1,024 Excalibur 333 daughtercards (4,096 microprocessors total) to work together in a Distributed Shared Memory Architecture that provides performance approaching 3 teraflops.

Excalibur 333 is ideal for very demanding image and signal processing applications such as radar, sonar, medical imaging and image analysis. Excalibur 333 provides fast access to large amounts of memory at three levels:

1. Each PowerPC microprocessor is coupled to its own bank of up to 128 MB of SDRAM that is accessed over the microprocessor's memory bus at 667 MB/sec.

2. Memory from other microprocessors can be accessed over the daughtercard through the same 667 MB/sec bus.

3. Global memory and memory on other compute daughtercards is accessible through the 320 MB/sec SKYchannel interface.

- GJ

For more information, contact Sky Computers, Inc., 27 Industrial Avenue, Chelmsford, MA 01824. 978-250-1920. Circle 555.