NEWS BRIEFS
Seattle, WA — Cray Inc. announced that Phillips Petroleum Company has signed a $3.6 million order for the first Cray T3E-1350 system, a faster model of the product line that holds the current world record for computer problem-solving speed. Phillips will use the new supercomputer to help find new oil deposits and lower exploration and development costs.
The 136-processor Cray T3E-1350 supercomputer will be installed at Phillips’ Bartlesville, Okla. headquarters facility in August, and is expected to complete the customer acceptance process by late September. The new system replaces a 64-processor Cray T3E-900 supercomputer and will be used to run advanced, 3-D seismic processing applications that detect untapped oil deposits in hard-to-explore areas. The Cray T3E-1350 system will allow Phillips to apply advanced seismic imaging methods over larger areas and with greater resolution and accuracy than before.
The new system features faster, 675 MHz processors each rated at 1.35 billion calculations per second, larger memory, and enhanced interprocessor and memory bandwidth. Phillips’ Cray T3E-1350 supercomputer will have 84 gigabytes of memory.
The Cray T3E-1350 series is fully compatible with all earlier models of the Cray T3E product line. The Cray T3E system was awarded the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize for achieving the current world-record sustained speed of more than one trillion calculations per second on a real-world, 64-bit application. The Cray T3E system outperforms other vendors’ scalable systems, even those with higher theoretical (“peak”) performance, because the Cray T3E is designed as a large, efficient single system, rather than a less-efficient “cluster” that links together separate smaller computers.
“Finding still-hidden oil deposits is increasingly challenging, especially as we explore in deep-water environments in the presence of complex geological formations, such as salt layers that distort seismic data,” said Paul Valasek, project manager for the seismic imaging group at Phillips Petroleum. “We use Cray technology to run massive seismic imaging applications that correct this distortion and help us to ‘see’ the geological strata more clearly and help reduce risk in well placement.”
Kay Wyatt, research leader in seismic imaging and multi-component technologies, also comments that, “We are using the Cray technology to assist us in defining more than just the structural aspects of the earth. Advanced technologies, such as multi-component seismic, let us better understand the rock and fluid properties of the geologic strata as well.”
“The Cray T3E line is the reigning world champion for proven high-end scalability. Now the Cray T3E-1350 series will provide even faster real-world results for customers like Phillips Petroleum whose applications require extreme performance,” said Cray Inc. President and CEO Jim Rottsolk.
Cray Inc. designs, builds and sells high-performance vector processor and general-purpose parallel computer systems. The company has leading edge technology, multiple product platforms, nearly 900 employees, a $2 billion installed base of over 600 computers worldwide, major manufacturing and service capabilities and extensive global customer relationships. Go to http://www.cray.com for more information on the company.
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