Supercomputer

A supercomputer is a computer with great speed and memory. This kind of computer can do jobs faster than any other computer of its generation. They are usually thousands of times faster than ordinary personal computers made at that time. Supercomputers can do arithmetic jobs very fast, so they are used for weather forecasting, code-breaking, genetic analysis and other jobs that need many calculations. When new computers of all classes become more powerful, new ordinary computers are made with powers that only supercomputers had in the past, while new supercomputers continue to outclass them.
Electrical engineers make supercomputers that link many thousands of microprocessors.
Types
Supercomputer types include: shared memory, distributed memory and array. Supercomputers with shared memory are developed by using a parallel computing and pipelining concept. Supercomputers with distributed memory consist of many (about 100~10000) nodes. CRAY series of CRAYRESERCH and VP 2400/40, NECyi SX-3 of HUCIS are shared memory types. nCube 3, iPSC/860, AP 1000, NCR 3700, Paragon XP/S, CM-5 are distributed memory types.
An array type computer named ILIAC started working in 1972. Later, the CF-11, CM-2, and the Mas Par MP-2 (which is also an array type) were developed. Supercomputers that use a physically separated memory as one shared memory include the T3D, KSR1, and Tera Computer.
Supercomputing centers, organizations
Organizations
DEISA Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications, a facility integrating eleven European supercomputing centers.
NAREGI Japanese NAtional REsearch Grid Initiative involving several supercomputer centers
TeraGrid , a national facility integrating nine US supercomputing centers
Centers
BSC Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Spanish national supercomputing facility and R&D center
CESCA Supercomputing Centre of Catalonia - Centre de Supercomputacio de Catalunya
CESGA Galicia Supercomputing Center - Centro de Supercomputacion de Galicia
CeSViMa Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid
CINECA CINECA Interuniversity Consortium, Italy
CINES Centre Informatique National de l'Enseignement Superieur, France
CSAR UK national supercomputer service operated by Manchester Computing
EPCC Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre. Based in the University of Edinburgh.
GSIC Global Scientific Information and Computing Center at the Tokyo Institute of Technology
HECToR UK national supercomputer service provided by a consortium of EPCC, Cray and Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG)
HPCx UK national supercomputer service operated by EPCC and Daresbury Lab
IRB
Minnesota Supercomputer Institute (Formerly Minnesota Supercomputer Center) operated by University of Minnesota
NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC)
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center operated by University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
SARA (Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
System X at Virginia Tech
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
DCSC Danish Centre for Scientific Computing. Based at the University of Copenhagen.
PSNC (Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center), Poznan, Poland
NSC National Supercomputer Centre in Sweden at Linkoping University, Sweden
Specific machines, general-purpose
Linux NetworX press release: Linux NetworX to build "largest" Linux supercomputer
ASCI White press release
MCR @ LLNL Linux NetworX Supermicro based Supercomputer "3rd largest supercomputer in 2004"
Article about Japanese "Earth Simulator" computer
"Earth Simulator" website (in English)
NEC high-performance computing information
Superconducting Supercomputer
Blue Waters Petascale Computing System
Specific machines, special-purpose
Papers on the GRAPE special-purpose computer
More special-purpose supercomputer information
Information about the APEmille special-purpose computer
Information about the apeNEXT special-purpose computer
Information about the QCDOC project, machines
Related pages
Cluster (computing)
Grid computing
Computers