From: sund@MasPar.COM (Brenda Sund)
Subject: (News Release) MasPar Announces Second Generation System
Apparently-To: uunet!comp-parallel
Keywords: MasPar,MP-2
Organization: MasPar Computer Corp.
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 16:39:50 GMT


MASPAR COMPUTER CORPORATION				10.6.92.539
749 North Mary Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Scott Humphrey (408) 736-3300   		FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


       MasPar Announces MP-2 Massively Parallel Computer;
       2nd Generation System Offers 5X Performance Boost

Sunnyvale, Calif., October 6, 1992 - MasPar Computer Corporation 
today announced its second generation massively parallel system, 
the MP-2.  The MP-2 delivers up to five times the performance of 
the first generation MasPar system, the MP-1, yet retains binary 
compatibility, a unique attribute in the rapidly moving and 
research-oriented massively parallel processing (MPP) market.  The 
entire portfolio of application software that runs on the MP-1 is 
available at introduction for the MP-2.

     "We know from experience that the biggest investment computer 
users make is in the software they create," said Jeff Kalb, 
president and CEO of MasPar.  "Before MPP systems can truly become 
a viable alternative for production applications, our customers 
and software partners need to see the recognition of this fact in 
our products.  With proven performance of up to five times the MP-1,
along with binary compatibility, the MasPar MP-2 is ready for 
industrial strength, production environments." 
     
New Price/Performance Standard

     At Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University, a MasPar beta 
site, the MP-2 has produced exceptional results and has set a new 
price/performance standard in high-performance computing.

     "On compute-intensive application kernels, weUve seen over 
one GigaFLOPS (32-bit) on our 4,096 processor MP-2," said Dr. John 
Gustafson, director of Ames Lab. "We are finding the MP-2 delivers 
an average of four times the performance of a comparably-
configured MP-1.  The MP-2 has now replaced our MP-1 as the most 
cost-effective system in our Scalable Computing Facility."

     GigaFLOPS (one billion Floating Point Operations per Second) 
is a measure of performance typically associated with scientific 
and engineering calculations.  For comparison, high performance 
workstations deliver .020-.050 GigaFLOPS, and one GigaFLOPS CRAY 
supercomputers typically cost over $3 million. The MP-2 model 2204 
used at Ames Laboratory has a list price of $530,000.

     In addition, the MP-2 sets a new level of performance on 
another important metric, integer operations per second.  The MP-2 
delivers 68,000 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second), a level 
unmatched by any other massively parallel system, regardless of 
price.  For comparison, a 386-based PC averages 10 MIPS, making 
the MP-2 the equivalent of almost 7,000 PCs.

     "There are more applications emerging for MPP all the time," 
said Kalb. "We are finding that many of the new ones, such as 
statistics and biotech, benefit from high integer performance as 
well as high floating point performance. The MP-2 is in a class by 
itself for integer performance, and it will be exciting to 
watch as software developers find new ways to take advantage of 
this unique capability."

World's First R32 x 32S RISC Chip

     At the heart of the MP-2 is a full custom processor chip - 
the first with 32, 32-bit RISC processors on one chip.  The MasPar 
"32X32" (32 by 32) RISC CPU chip represents an elegant and 
powerful use of today's semiconductor technology.  Designed to 
support massively parallel computing, each chip produces 133 MIPS, 
12.3 MFLOPS, and has communcations bandwidth of 40 Mbytes/second.  
Yet each 32 processor chip consumes less than 0.8 watts of power.

     "Getting this level of performance with under a watt of power 
consumption enables not only high performance, but also 
extraordinary reliability and simplicity of installation," said 
Kalb.  "The MP-2 will continue the excellent reliability 
reputation of the MP-1, which has averaged 8,000 hours mean-time-
between-failure (MTBF), which represents one year of normal use."  
In addition, the MP-2 requires no special environmental 
conditioning.

    The 32 x 32 chip is designed in one micron CMOS technology and 
contains more than one million transistors. The MP-2 is available 
in five configurations, from 1,024 to 16,384 processors with list 
prices ranging from $260,000 to $1.6 million.  The MP-2 is 
available immediately.

MP-1 Now Priced At $75,000

     With the introduction of the MP-2, MasPar also announced a 
dramatic reduction in the list prices of the MP-1. The entry price 
for the MP-1 is now  $75,000 for a complete system, making it the 
most powerful and cost-effective entry MPP system available today. 
This represents a 32 percent cut from the prior list price, and 56 
percent less than when the MP-1 was introduced in January, 1990.  

     "This is where our binary compatibility strategy will really 
pay dividends," said Kalb. "Because our customers can move their 
code smoothly between the MP-1 and MP-2, the MP-1 now becomes an 
excellent development system, and with our new pricing, it makes 
MPP more accessible than ever."

     "We are delighted with the new MP-1 pricing," said Michael 
Kelly, president of Intelligenetics Inc. of Mountain View 
California, which develops and markets biotech applications 
software for MasPar machines.  "As a software developer, a 
critical factor to our success is the number of installed systems 
that can run our product.  A $75,000 MP-1 system puts us squarely 
in the range of workstation prices, but with well over ten times 
the performance on our type of application."

     MasPar Computer Corporation, headquartered in Sunnyvale, 
California is a leader in the emerging market for massively 
parallel processing, a new approach to high performance computing 
using thousands of processors working in unison.  MasPar has 
shipped over 130 revenue systems since introduction in January 
1990, and industry analysts put the company fourth in revenues and 
fastest growing of the massively parallel processing companies 
during 1991. MasPar products are used extensively in industry and 
academia for applications ranging from simulations of automotive 
crashes to cancer and AIDS research.  

                           -- end --

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