Glen Culler Associates

Status:

The company is no longer in business.

Overview of Organisation:

Platforms Documented:

Platform 1

Contact Address:

(no longer useful)

Glen Culler Associates
Compass Systems
Bridge House
Faraday Road
Newbury
Berks RG13 2DH
England
0635-521600
Telex 846301 Compas G
FAX (0635) 521268\\

CULLER 8

Overview of Platform:

Bus-connected parallel architecture.

Compute Hardware:

Proprietary 64-bit dual interleaved floating-point processors.

Interconnect / Communications System:

Bus-connected shared memory.

Memory System:

Each processor has a local high-speed static memory of 32 Mbytes. A global dynamic memory is available in 24 Mbyte increments.

Benchmarks / Compute and data transfer performance:

The harmonic mean of all the Livermore Loop benchmarks is expected to be well in excess of 10 Mflops for each UP. This is scaled from the established performance of the CULLER 7 architecture from which the CULLER 8 is derived. The CULLER 8 has five times the scalar and ten times the vector performance of that machine.

Additional hardware modules will accelerate specific algorithms such as FFTs at 120 Mflops and convolution at 100 Mflops.

Operating System Software and Environment:

The F77 and C compilers share a common back-end code generator. The compilers are designed to exploit the architecture and make efficient use of all internal parallel resources. DEC VMS extensions are supported.

CULLER CSD 4.2 UNIX is an extension of Berkeley 4.2 UNIX to integrate user processes. All normal SUN networking and development utilities are supported.

Floating-point arithmetic conforms to IEEE standard.

Networkability/ I/O System / Integrability / Reliability / Scalability:

The CULLER 8 is front-ended by a SUN 3 with three board set performing at 37.5 Mflops. An HSC link at 100 Mbytes/sec interconnects up to 16 computing nodes. Disk storage via IBIS 1 Gbyte drives with a 12 Mbyte/sec data transfer rate.

Up to sixteen processors (UPs, or Unit Processors) may be linked with the CULLER 8 PSC. Each UP has a peak rating of 75 Mflops in both single and double precision.

Notable Applications / Customers / Market Sectors:

The first beta site was to be COMPASS SYSTEMS in the UK in the autumn of 1988. Deliveries of systems were to commence in 1989, with full production by 2Q, 1989.

The price of a complete 37.5 Mflop CULLER 8 PSC was to be about $90,000, with 75 Mflop UPs costing about $80,000.

Overall Comments:

hawick@npac.syr.edu

saleh@npac.syr.edu