Richardson, Texas minisupercomputer maker Convex Computer Corp will this week endorse the Scalable Coherent Interface bus technology, pioneered by Norsk Data A/S affiliate Dolphin Server Technology A/S. Convex has adopted Hewlett-Packard Co’s Precision Architecture RISC, with Hewlett acquiring 5% of the company in return, and has an existing relationship with MIPS Computer Systems Inc for its R series RISCs. Dolphin claims its technology enables up to 1,000 RISCs to be coupled together, each accessing 100Mb of memory – significantly extending the scope of supercomputer applications. Dolphin, which has been developing Scalable Coherent Interface over the last two years, will add its own multiprocessing system using the technology with the Motorola Inc 88110 later this year. Triton SCI, Dolphin says, will be a 300 MIPS system configured in a Token Ring-like format with cache and memory components taken from its Orion project – a joint development with Motorola to build a multiprocessing machine around an ECL version of the 88000. Triton SCI will offer bridges to VME-based systems and the company claims it will be five times faster than systems that will be built around the emerging Futurebus+ standard.
