For Immediate Release

TOKYO, Japan -- March 7, 1996 -- Fujitsu today announces worldwide the most powerful UltraSPARC parallel server, the Fujitsu AP3000 Series. The AP3000 Series configure up to 1,024 of the latest 64-bit UltraSPARCs, connected via ultra-high-speed network.

The performance improvement of recent microprocessors is tremendous, nonetheless, there still exists strong demand for more computing capability which a single processor cannot deliver. A typical solution to these requirements has been to install multiple servers or a shared memory system with a dozen processors. This solution, however, does not completely resolve the problem of data transfer overhead nor the complexity of system administration workload.

AP3000 is a parallel server which employs Sun's UltraServers connected via ultra-high-speed network (maximum 200 MB/s bi- directional), AP-Net, developed by Fujitsu Laboratory Limited. AP3000 is designed to deliver ultimate performance for advanced users by parallelizing programs while maintaining a single system image.

"I expect a much closer relationship between the companies and synergy for the Sun UltraSPARC products since Fujitsu, one of the largest Sun products distributors, selected UltraSPARC as the building block of Fujitsu's AP3000 parallel servers." said Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc. "The Sun and Fujitsu team can now offer SPARC products from laptop workstations to supercomputers. Sun looks forward to Fujitsu's developing even more powerful AP3000 follow-on products in the future. Sun will collaborate with Fujitsu to enable Fujitsu to develop, manufacture and successfully bring future AP3000 into the marketplace.", he added.

Prime Features
The Solaris 2.5 operating system runs on each node, enabling more than 12,000 application packages currently available on Solaris 2.x to run on AP3000.

A single job can be executed on multiple nodes to obtain optimum performance. Parallelized application programs including structural analysis and visualization will be available.

Applications
AP3000 is an ideal platform for researchers pursuing supercomputer performance; computer center managers offering a variety of computing environments; service providers handling multimedia information; and corporate management making critical decisions based on huge data.

Price and Availability
The base system of AP3000 starts at $267,000 (US list price). The system will be available at the end of December, 1996. Fujitsu expects to ship 300 systems in three years. Fujitsu has already received five orders of AP3000. Fujitsu will install an AP3000 system at Fujitsu European Center for Information Technology (FECIT) in London, United Kingdom, to research parallel technologies, support businesses and develop application programs.

Fujitsu is committed to the SPARC roadmap for enhancing nodes of AP3000 to maintain the best price/performance ratio in the industry. To further achieve the highest possible system-wide performance, inter-node network will be enhanced.

Fujitsu has operations in computers, telecommunications and semiconductors, each of which is an integral part of the total corporation. Fujitsu had fiscal year 1994 sales of more than $36 billion.

All trademarks of SPARC, including the SCD conformity logo are registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. of the United States. Products bearing the SPARC trademark are based on architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox Co. Ltd. Ultra and Solaris are trademarks, or registered trademarks, of Sun Microsystems, Inc. SPEC is a trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp.

Noriko Kikuchi- Fujitsu Limited, Public Relations
Marunouchi Center Bld., 1-6-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100 Japan
Phone: 81(3) 3215-5236 Internet e-mail: kikuchi@hq.fujitsu.co.jp
Internet Server:http://jp.fujitsu.com/(Japanese Home Page)
http://www.fujitsu.com/(English Page)

AP3000 Characteristics

AP3000 is a distributed-memory parallel server, employing UltraSPARC workstations as a node processor. The Solaris 2.5 operating system runs on each node, thus more than 12,000 application packages currently available on Solaris 2.x run on AP3000.

Job execution performance can be improved by parallelizing the job across the nodes. To assist parallel program development and execution, AP3000 provides the following features:

• extended 2D torus high-performance network, AP-Net
• standard parallel programming language, HPF, and libraries, PVM and MPI
• parallel program development tools
• parallel application programs in the fields of electronic computer-aided engineering, structural analysis, computational chemistry, visualization and mathematical libraries.

In order to maximize the available computing resources both for easy system administration and for improved total throughput of the system, the AP3000 Series offer the following features:

• Each node can be used as an independent server communicated by TCP/IP.
• Multiple nodes are designed to behave as a single system for easy administration including power control to the nodes and I/O devices.
• Automatic load balancing of processes logged-in and jobs submitted from workstations guarantees the response and turnaround time of each user regardless of the load to the system.
• The AP3000 system can be partitioned into several different groups to suit a variety of different requirements among the users.

Typical Users

Researchers pursuing supercomputer performance

Effectiveness of parallel processing in areas like electronic design automation and computational chemistry, among other areas, has been proven. Fujitsu is developing parallel application packages with main focus on these areas for the fastest possible execution of a single job. To improve the porting exercise and to help developers parallelize codes, Fujitsu provides parallel programming tools like HPF, PVM, and MPI.

Computer center managers offering a variety of computing environments

Computer centers of universities or research institutes where multiple servers fulfill the requirements of different users can best benefit by AP3000. One AP3000 can be partitioned for different groups of users or for different types of jobs executed, thus maximizing the resource available.

Service providers handling multimedia information

A lot of people and organizations are setting up World Wide Web servers to offer a variety of information. AP3000 can be partitioned for multiple World Wide Web servers while an entire system is managed as a single system. The AP3000 system is suitable for research institutes and network service providers that maintain multiple servers.

Corporate management making critical decisions based on huge data

Corporate-wide decision support systems based on huge amount of data like customer information or point-of-sales (POS) information are becoming the critical technology to survive through highly competitive markets. AP3000 can easily cope with the growing needs of decision support systems since processor performance and storage capacities scale up with the increase of the workloads.

Parallel Application Programs

Fujitsu is developing parallel application programs focusing on areas suitable for scalar parallel processing such as electronic computer-aided engineering, structural analysis, computational chemistry, visualization and mathematical libraries.

Node Specifications

Types of nodes         U140        U170        U170E
Number of processor     1            1           1
Processor           UltraSPARC   UltraSPARC   UltraSPARC
Clock Cycle          143 MHz      167 MHz      167 MHz
SPECint92              215          252          252
SPECfp92               303          351          351
Cache size - internal  32 KB        32 KB        32 KB
             external 512 KB       512 KB       512 KB
Memory size          32-512 MB    64-512 MB    64-512 MB
Disk capacity        2.1-4.2 GB  2.1-4.2 GB     4.2 GB
Available SBus slot(s)  2             2           1

System Specifications

Number of nodes	       4 to 1,024
Types of nodes         U140, U170, U170E
Memory size            128 MB - 512 GB
Disk capacity          8.4 GB - 4.2 TB
Inter-node network     AP-Net (200 MB/sec. bi-directional)
External networks      Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, FDDI, ATM
Storage devices	       Disk Array, Tape Libraries, etc.
OS                     Solaris 2.5 or later