Henry Burkhardt, one of the supergroup of industry stars that came together at Ken Fisher’s instigation to form Encore Computer Corp, is back in business again, and hopes to be one of the pioneers of commercial applications of massively parallel processor technology. The Data General Corp alumnus has formed Kendall Square Research Inc in Waltham, Massachusetts to develop and market a multiple-instruction, multiple-data massively parallel machine with up to 1,000 processors, which is due to be unveiled before the end of the year. Electronic News hears that the machine will use a double ring topology to interconnect the processors, with up to 30 separate rings, each capable of supporting up to 34 processors, all the rings being tied together by a larger secondary ring. Each processor would have its own memory, but the concept of the concentric rings appears to be an elaboration of that of nodes consisting of clusters of processors.
