Thinking Machines Corp has provided a dedicated floating point chip to each of the 64,000 processors that make up its massively parallel Connection Machine (CI No 426). The 64,000 processors are very simple one-bit processors with 16 built onto one chip. The new CM-2 is claimed to operate at 2,500 MIPS compared with the 1,000 MIPS speed of the CM-1, and is also rated at 2,500 MFlops. The system supports eight input-output channels and has 512Mb memory. The Cambridge, Massachusetts firm says that the CM-2 is designed for data intensive applications and will cost $1m to $5m.
THINKING ADDS FLOATING POINT TO CONNECTION MACHINE
