Cray-3
The Cray-3 was a Vector processor, vector supercomputer, Seymour Cray's designated successor to the Cray-2. The system was one of the first major applications of gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors in computing, using hundreds of custom built ...
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...
Cray Research
Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed i ...
. CCC went
bankrupt
Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the de ...
in 1995 before any Cray-4 had been delivered.
Design
The earlier
Cray-3
The Cray-3 was a Vector processor, vector supercomputer, Seymour Cray's designated successor to the Cray-2. The system was one of the first major applications of gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors in computing, using hundreds of custom built ...
was the first major application of
gallium arsenide
Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a Zincblende (crystal structure), zinc blende crystal structure.
Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monoli ...
(GaAs)
semiconductors
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping levels ...
in
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...
. It was not considered a success, and only one Cray-3 was delivered.
Seymour Cray
Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996) – was an American
vector processors attached to a fast memory. The Cray-3 supported from four to sixteen processors running at 474 MHz, while the Cray-4 scaled from four to sixty-four processors running at 1 GHz. The final packaging for the Cray-4 was intended to fit into , and was to be tested in the smaller one-CPU "tanks" from the Cray-3. A midrange system included 16 processors, 1,024 megawords (8192 MB) of memory and provided 32 gigaflops for $11 million.
The local memory architecture used on the Cray-2 and Cray-3 was dropped, returning to the mass of B- and T- registers on earlier designs, owing to Seymour's lack of success using the local memory effectively.
1994
"Significant technical progress was made during 1994 on the CRAY-4, which takes advantage of technologies and manufacturing processes developed during the design and manufacture of the CRAY-3. The Company announced introduction of the CRAY-4 to the market on November 10, 1994. Several single processor CRAY-4 prototype systems, each with 64 megawords of memory, were undergoing diagnostic testing prior to the Company filing for bankruptcy. The Company began testing individual CRAY-4 modules at the start of 1994 and planned to be able to deliver a 4-processor CRAY-4 prototype system by approximately the end of the second quarter of 1995. Upon filing of bankruptcy, the Company stopped work on the CRAY-4."http://www.techagreements.com/agreement-preview.aspx?num=121632 CCC 1994 Annual Report
Legacy
The processor with serial number 001 sold at auction for $37,500 on 22 September 2015. Manufactured in 1995, it is believed to be the only one in existence. Has image of Cray-4 processor board. Parts of CPU prototypes exist. Marketing brochures also exist.