Meiko Scientific Ltd, Bristol, Avon, is expected to drop Intel Corp’s 80860 RISC from its next-generation of massively parallel, multiple instruction-multiple data Transputer-based systems which are due later this year. Instead it is thought Meiko will use the Fujitsu Ltd VP single-chip vector processor for floating point operations alongside the Texas Instruments Inc Viking SuperSparc for scalar operations, although Meiko has said that Cypress Semiconductor Corp’s HyperSparc will be considered once it becomes available, and that the 80860 could work with the new architecture if required. Meiko’s new system is expected to be announced at the Institution of Electrical & Electronic Engineers Supercomputer Show in November with first shipments of smaller systems to be made by the end of the year and systems with a daunting 2,000-plus processors following along next year.
