20Gb/s ConnectX provides the foundation for interconnecting five of the top ten computers

DRESDEN, Germany, June 18 -- Mellanox Technologies, Ltd., a leading supplier of semiconductor-based, server and storage interconnect products, today announced that its ConnectX 20Gb/s InfiniBand adapters and switch systems based on its InfiniScale switch silicon provide the leading, scalable, low-latency, high-performance interconnect for the #1 fastest supercomputer on the Top500, National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Roadrunner, the world’s first petaflop supercomputer. Built by IBM and housed at NNSA’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Roadrunner’s performance is more than double the performance of the next leading contender on the latest TOP500 list of supercomputers. The computer will be used to analyze national security threats, test nuclear stockpiles, run annual testing of various nuclear weapons systems, and investigate long-term climate change, astronomy, and human genome science. By providing the underlying fabric technology for the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Mellanox continues to demonstrate its technical proficiency, proven reliability and scalability, and performance leadership.

“Mellanox’s interconnect products provide leading technology and device architecture designed for scalable high-performance and low-power consumption, and are proven to optimize the world's most demanding computing and storage applications,” said Thad Omura, vice president of product marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “We are pleased to have our technology at the foundation of five of the Top10 systems in the TOP500 list, and in nearly half of the Top100 systems. Our newly announced 40Gb/s InfiniBand solutions will continue to support the ever-increasing performance needs of world leading research, educational centers and commercial datacenters.”

Published twice a year and publicly available at Top500.org, the TOP500 list ranks the most powerful computer systems according to the Linpack benchmark rating system and is a respected industry report which indicates usage trends in computing and interconnect solutions.

Highlights of InfiniBand usage on the June 2008 TOP500 list include:

• Mellanox InfiniBand interconnect products occupy 5 of the top 10 most prestigious positions.
  
  
• All InfiniBand-based clusters utilize Mellanox switch silicon and over 95% integrate adapter products based on Mellanox silicon.
  
  
• InfiniBand is the only industry standard interconnect used in the Top58 (29 total supercomputers) -- all based on Mellanox adapter cards and switch silicon.
  
  
• Mellanox InfiniBand interconnect products present in the TOP500 are used by a diverse list of applications, from large-scale high-performance computing to commercial technical computing and enterprise datacenters.
  
  
• The average efficiency of all reported InfiniBand-based supercomputers is 73% (significantly higher than 53% for Gigabit Ethernet supercomputers) reducing power, cooling, cost, floor space and total cost of ownership.
  
  
• InfiniBand is the most used interconnect in the Top100 supercomputers with 49 clusters, more than 6X the number of Gigabit Ethernet based clusters (8), and nearly 5X the number of proprietary high speed cluster interconnects.
  
  
• The total number of InfiniBand connected CPU cores on the list has grown from 340,000 in November 2007 to 607,000 in 2008 (78% half-yearly growth). This growth is nearly 2X the growth in the total TOP500 list, which highlights InfiniBand’s world leading scalability.
  
  
• InfiniBand is the only growing clustered interconnect in the Top100 with nearly a 30% growth rate compared to Nov 2007 and 180% compared to June 2007.
  
  
• The total performance of InfiniBand based systems has grown from 2PFlops to 6PFlops (196% yearly growth). This growth is 3X the growth in the total TOP500 list, which highlights the increasing demand for InfiniBand to maximize computing resources and performance.
  
  
• The number of InfiniBand-based supercomputers is more than 7 times the number of supercomputers using other high-speed interconnects combined (> 1 Gb/s).
  
  
• The entry-level for the TOP500 list is 8.9TFlops, 150% higher than the 5.9TFlops necessary to be on the November 2007 list, indicating the explosive market demands for more efficient and scalable computing enabled by Mellanox’s interconnect products.

About Mellanox

Mellanox Technologies (NASDAQ: MLNX; TASE: MLNX) is a leading supplier of semiconductor-based, interconnect products to world-class server, storage, and infrastructure OEMs servicing Fortune 500 datacenters, the world’s most powerful supercomputers, and mission critical embedded applications. The company’s Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) enables standard communication protocols to operate over any converged network (InfiniBand, Ethernet, Data Center Ethernet) with the same software solution. Utilizing proven networking, clustering, storage, virtualization and RDMA acceleration engines, VPI optimizes application performance, power consumption, workload agility, and total system efficiency while future-proofing IT infrastructure.

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Source: Mellanox Technologies