Packaging technology for the parallel supercomputer SX-4

摘要

The supercomputer SX-4 performs the fastest computational operation in the world and presented in 1994 (FIG. 1). This paper describes the packaging technology, mainly interconnection and cooling technologies of the parallel supercomputer SX-4Firstly, the packaging hierarchy in the SX-4 is described. In the SX-4, performance and system scalability are significantly progressed compared with the former SX-3. As a result, maximum 1 TeraFlops(Floating-point operation per second) performance andsystem scalability from 1 CPU to 32 CPUs were achieved. These achievements largely attribute to the packaging technology of the SX-4. Secondly, the I/O pins connection technology adopted in the SX-4, especially the connection between the card and the backboard is described. This structure requires about 500kg insertion force for card insertion. Precise structure was achieved to insurethe sufficient accuracy limiting the deformation of the parts used in the structure with the help of a FEM(Finite Element Method) analysis. Finally, cooling technology is described. In the SX-4, large amount of heat generated from the LSIs should be cooled off. Therefore, various kinds of techniques were employed. In these efforts, this paper mainly describes a CFD(Computational FluidDynamics) analysis trying to average the distribution of cooling-air velocity so as to normalize the LSI temperature.