The T3D (Torus, 3-Dimensional) was Cray Research's first attempt at a massively parallel supercomputer architecture. Launched in 1993, it also marked Cray's first use of a non-proprietary microprocessor in a supercomputer. The T3D consisted of between 32 and 2048 Processing Elements (PEs), each comprising a 150 MHz DEC Alpha 21064 (EV4) microprocessor and either 16 or 64 MB of DRAM. PEs were grouped in pairs, or nodes, which incorporated a 6-way ...
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The T3D (Torus, 3-Dimensional) was Cray Research's first attempt at a massively parallel supercomputer architecture. Launched in 1993, it also marked Cray's first use of a non-proprietary microprocessor in a supercomputer. The T3D consisted of between 32 and 2048 Processing Elements (PEs), each comprising a 150 MHz DEC Alpha 21064 (EV4) microprocessor and either 16 or 64 MB of DRAM. PEs were grouped in pairs, or nodes, which incorporated a 6-way processor interconnect switch. These switches had a peak bandwidth of 300 MB/second in each direction and were connected to form a three-dimensional torus network topology.
The T3D was designed to be hosted by a Cray Y-MP Model E, M90 or C90-series "front-end" system and rely on it and its UNICOS operating system for all I/O and most system services. The T3D PEs ran a simple microkernel called UNICOS MAX.
Several different configurations of T3D were available. The SC (Single Cabinet) models shared a cabinet with a host Y-MP system and were...
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