Parsytec GmbH, the $10m-a-year Aachen, Germany-based developer of massively parallel Transputer-based computer systems – no relation to Parsys Ltd – has set up a UK subsidiary in Pangbourne, Berkshire to develop and supply computationally -intensive systems based on the Inmos Transputer. Parsytec GmbH started up in 1985, shipping its first multiple -instruction -multiple -data MultiCluster (16 to 64 processor) system in May 1986, and its first SuperCluster (16 to 400 processor) in 1988. In May last year, the company expanded into the former East Germany, with the establishment of Parsytec Eastern Europe GmbH in Chemnitz. It also has a US subsidiary in West Chicago, which set up around three years ago under the name Paracom. Parsytec now has 600 customers worldwide – 50% of which are outside Germany and are served through Parsytec’s distributor network, which covers France, Benelux, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Greece, the US, Israel, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India and Australia. The company has been present in the UK since August 1989, when it signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Dean Microsystems – now, the new Parsytec Ltd will focus on developing computationally -intensive systems and applications – for example for fluid dynamics and aero-dynamics modelling and weather forecasting, whilst Dean concentrates on real-time embedded industrial systems and applications – such as robotics. Parsytec applications in general are written in Fortran, but applications that are developed from scratch are often written in C. Parsytec Ltd is already projecting UK sales of UKP1m for 1991, confident that Transputer-based systems, with the ease with which their processors communicate, are ideal for numerically-intensive applications. Last week, the company opened the Parsytec Parallel Processing Centre at Glasgow University – a joint venture with the university’s Electronics & Electrical Engineering division, which Parsytec is co-funding with an injection of UKP300,000. The SuperCluster system installed in the centre has a total of 100 processors and is claimed to have the processing power of a Cray supercomputer, computing at around 1,000 MIPS. One of the research projects that the new centre will be involved in is the study of the miniaturisation limits of transistors.
