NEC SX-9

NEC SX-9 Press Release

NEC SX-9 is to be the world's fastest vector supercomputer with a peak processing performance of 839 TFLOPS. The SX-9 features the world's first CPU capable of a peak vector performance of 102.4 GFLOPS per single core.

In addition to the newly developed CPU, the SX-9 combines large-scale shared memory of up to 1TB and ultra high-speed interconnects achieving speeds up to 128GB/second. Through these enhanced features, the SX-9 closes in on the PFLOPS range by realizing a processing performance of 839 TFLOPS. The SX-9 also achieves an approximate three-quarter reduction in space and power consumption over conventional models. This was achieved by applying advanced LSI design and high-density packaging technology.

In comparison to scalar servers incorporating multiple general-purpose CPUs, the vector supercomputer offers superior operating performance for high-speed scientific computation and ultra high-speed processing of large-volume data. The enhanced effectiveness of the new product will be clearly demonstrated in fields such as weather forecasting, fluid dynamics and environmental simulation, as well as simulations for as-yet-unknown materials in nanotechnology and polymeric design.

The SX-9 will be showcased at SC07 (Supercomputing 2007), the world's largest supercomputing exposition, in Reno, Nevada from November 10 - 16. It will also be on display at iExpo2007 (NEC's own personal exhibition), at Tokyo's Big Site from December 5 - 7.

The machine will be built in Kobe in western Japan and operated by public research institute Riken.

Louis Aragon (1897-1982)

Poet, novelist, and essayist, a founder of Surrealism with Paul Éluard, André Breton, and Luis Buñuel among others. Aragon's work reflects the principal trends of thought of the 20th century.

Les Yeux d'Elsa

Tes yeux sont si profonds qu'en me penchant pour boire
J'ai vu tous les soleils y venir se mirer
S'y jeter à mourir tous les désespérés
Tes yeux sont si profonds que j'y perds la mémoire
À l'ombre des oiseaux c'est l'océan troublé
Puis le beau temps soudain se lève et tes yeux changent
L'été taille la nue au tablier des anges
Le ciel n'est jamais bleu comme il l'est sur les blés

Les vents chassent en vain les chagrins de l'azur
Tes yeux plus clairs que lui lorsqu'une larme y luit
Tes yeux rendent jaloux le ciel d'après la pluie
Le verre n'est jamais si bleu qu'à sa brisure

Mère des Sept douleurs ô lumière mouillée
Sept glaives ont percé le prisme des couleurs
Le jour est plus poignant qui point entre les pleurs
L'iris troué de noir plus bleu d'être endeuillé

Tes yeux dans le malheur ouvrent la double brèche
Par où se reproduit le miracle des Rois
Lorsque le coeur battant ils virent tous les trois
Le manteau de Marie accroché dans la crèche

Une bouche suffit au mois de Mai des mots
Pour toutes les chansons et pour tous les hélas
Trop peu d'un firmament pour des millions d'astres
Il leur fallait tes yeux et leurs secrets gémeaux

L'enfant accaparé par les belles images
Écarquille les siens moins démesurément
Quand tu fais les grands yeux je ne sais si tu mens
On dirait que l'averse ouvre des fleurs sauvages

Cachent-ils des éclairs dans cette lavande où
Des insectes défont leurs amours violentes
Je suis pris au filet des étoiles filantes
Comme un marin qui meurt en mer en plein mois d'août

J'ai retiré ce radium de la pechblende
Et j'ai brûlé mes doigts à ce feu défendu
Ô paradis cent fois retrouvé reperdu
Tes yeux sont mon Pérou ma Golconde mes Indes

Il advint qu'un beau soir l'univers se brisa
Sur des récifs que les naufrageurs enflammèrent
Moi je voyais briller au-dessus de la mer
Les yeux d'Elsa les yeux d'Elsa les yeux d'Elsa


Les Yeux d'Elsa, Louis ARAGON, Les Yeux d'Elsa, (1942)

Black Body

In physics, a black body is an object that absorbs all electromagnetic radiation that falls onto it. No radiation passes through it and none is reflected. It is this lack of both transmission and reflection to which the name refers. These properties make black bodies ideal sources of thermal radiation. That is, the amount and wavelength (color) of electromagnetic radiation they emit is directly related to their temperature. Black bodies below around 700 K (430 °C) produce very little radiation at visible wavelengths and appear black. Black bodies above this temperature however, produce radiation at visible wavelengths starting at red, going through orange, yellow, and white before ending up at blue as the temperature increases.

The term "black body" was introduced by Gustav Kirchhoff in 1860. The light emitted by a black body is called black-body radiation (or cavity radiation), and has a special place in the history of quantum mechanics.


The temperature of a Pahoehoe lava flow can be estimated by observing its colour. The result agrees well with the measured temperatures of lava flows at about 1,000 to 1,200 °C.

The radiance or observed intensity is not a function of direction. Therefore a black body is a perfect Lambertian radiator.

In the laboratory, a black-body radiation is approximated by the radiation from a small hole entrance to a large cavity, a hohlraum. Any light entering the hole would have to reflect off the walls of the cavity multiple times before it escaped, in which process it is nearly certain to be absorbed. This occurs regardless of the wavelength of the radiation entering (as long as it is small compared to the hole). The hole, then, is a close approximation of a theoretical black body and, if the cavity is heated, the spectrum of the hole's radiation (i.e., the amount of light emitted from the hole at each wavelength) will be continuous, and will not depend on the material in the cavity.

Calculating this curve was a major challenge in theoretical physics during the late nineteenth century. The problem was finally solved in 1901 by Max Planck as Planck's law of black-body radiation. By making changes to Wien's Radiation Law (not to be confused with Wien's displacement law) consistent with Thermodynamics and Electromagnetism, he found a mathematical formula fitting the experimental data in a satisfactory way. To find a physical interpretation for this formula, Planck had then to assume that the energy of the oscillators in the cavity was quantized (i.e., integer multiples of some quantity). Einstein built on this idea and proposed the quantization of electromagnetic radiation itself in 1905 to explain the photoelectric effect. These theoretical advances eventually resulted in the superseding of classical electromagnetism by quantum electrodynamics. Today, these quanta are called photons and the black-body cavity may be thought of as containing a gas of photons. In addition, it led to the development of quantum versions of statistical mechanics, called Fermi-Dirac statistics and Bose-Einstein statistics, each applicable to a different class of particles.

Fermilab

Fermilab

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia near Chicago, Illinois, is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. As of January 1, 2007, Fermilab is operated by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC, a joint venture of the University of Chicago and the Universities Research Association (URA). URA is a consortium of 91 leading research oriented universities primarily in the United States, with members also in Canada, Japan, and Italy. Fermilab is a part of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor.



Fermilab's Tevatron is a landmark particle accelerator; in fact, at 6.28 kilometers (4 miles) in circumference, it is the world's highest energy particle accelerator. In 1995, both the CDF and D0 (detectors which utilize the Tevatron) experiments announced the discovery of the top quark. In addition to high energy collider physics, Fermilab is also host to a number of smaller fixed target experiments and neutrino experiments, such as MiniBooNE (Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment), SciBooNE (SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment) and MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search). The MiniBooNE detector is a 40-foot (12-meter) diameter sphere which contains 800 tons of mineral oil lined with 1520 individual phototube detectors. An estimated 1 million neutrino events are recorded each year. SciBooNE is the newest neutrino experiment at Fermilab; it sits in the same neutrino beam as MiniBooNE but has fine-grained tracking capabilities. The MINOS experiment uses Fermilab's NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam, which is an intense beam of neutrinos that travels 735km through the Earth to the Soudan Mine in Minnesota.

Experiments

* Tevatron proton-antiproton collider: D0 and Collider Detector at Fermilab
* MiniBooNE: Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment
* Sciboone: SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment
* MINOS: Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search
* MINERνA: Main INjector ExpeRiment with νs on As
* NOνA: NuMI Off-axis νe Appearance (proposed)

Computer Cluster

top500.org

beowulf.org

clusterknoppix

bccd.cs.uni.edu

ParallelKnoppix

openmosix

OpenSSI

chaos

A computer cluster is a group of loosely coupled computers that work together closely so that in many respects they can be viewed as though they are a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and/or availability over that provided by a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.



The TOP500 organization's semiannual list of the 500 fastest computers usually includes many clusters. TOP500 is a collaboration between the University of Mannheim, the University of Tennessee, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. As of June 2007, the top supercomputer is the Department of Energy's IBM BlueGene/L system with performance of 280.6 TFlops.

Top500:

373 Clusters (74,60 %)

107 MPPs (21,40%)

20 Constellations (4,00%)

Chandra X-ray Observatory

Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date.


M87 Core; about 50 million light years

The Instruments:

The Science Instrument Module (SIM) holds the two focal plane instruments, the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) and the High Resolution Camera (HRC), moving whichever is called for into position during an observation.

ACIS consists of 10 CCD chips and provides images as well as spectral information of the object observed. It operates in the range of 0.2 - 10 keV. HRC has two micro-channel plate components and images over the range of 0.1 - 10 keV. It also has a time resolution of 16 microseconds. Both of these instruments can be used on their own or in conjunction with one of the observatory's two transmission gratings.

The transmission gratings, which swing into the optical path behind the mirrors, provide Chandra with high resolution spectroscopy. The High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (HETGS) works over 0.4 - 10 keV and has a spectral resolution of 60-1000. The Low Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (LETGS) has a range of 0.09 - 3 keV and a resolution of 40-2000.


G292.0+1.8; about 20,000 light years; 142 hours of observation

Latest Discoveries:

# X-ray emissions from materials falling from a protoplanetary disc into a star.
# Hubble constant measured to be 76.9 km/s/Mpc using Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect.
# 2006 Chandra found strong evidence that dark matter exists by observing supercluster collision
# 2006 X-ray emitting loops, rings and filaments discovered around a supermassive black hole within Messier 87 imply the presence of pressure waves, shock waves and sound waves. The evolution of Messier 87 may have been dramatically affected.
# Observations of the Bullet cluster put limits on the cross-section of the self-interaction of dark matter.

UltraSPARC T2

Sun UltraSPARC T2

spec.org Q4 2007 Benchmarks


* Up to 8 cores, up to 64 threads per processor
* Dual 10Gbit Ethernet and PCI-E integrated onto chip
* Logical Domains (LDoms) for hardware virtualization with up to 64 OS instances
* Cryptographic processing at wire speeds


Single-chip SPEC CPU scores, based on tests that delivered 78.3 est. SPECint_rate2006 and 62.3 est. SPECfp_rate2006.

The UltraSPARC T2 is the first major processor whose blueprints are available under a free software license, namely the GPL.