Cray Computer Corp has added to the concern over its survivability by saying that it has had to put back production of its Cray 3 supercomputer by six months. The Colorado Springs spin-out from Cray Research Inc blames lack of gallium arsenide fabrication capacity and the lack of any equipment capable of testing circuits with switching times as fast as 2NS so it must design its own. According to Electronic News, it has had to ask Cray Research – bankrolling the effort to the tune of $100M – to extend its commitment to January 1992:it has currently scheduled to run out in July next year. The first working dual-processor Cray 3 will not now be ready until late next year. Underlining the gap between the research claims made by Japanese companies and their production capability, Seymour Cray told the company’s first annual meeting that it took Fujitsu three months to turn around Gaas parts because it has only a little research shop. So Cray must wair for volume parts until transfer of Gigabit Logic Gaas fabrication line – bought by Cray in March – To Colorado Springs from California, and that won’t be till November. The machine will now run AT&T Unix systemV.4.
