Technology Focus
Conduction Cooled Blades for FastCluster
BILLERICA, Massachusetts, June 14, 2005 - CSP Inc. (NASDAQ: CSPI) MultiComputer Division, a leading
supplier of embedded high-performance cluster computing systems, today announced that it is expanding its FastCluster 2000 SERIES product line with the introduction of its new Conduction
Cooled blades. Designed with the mature Myrinet™ clustering technology and the latest 7447 PowerPC AltiVec™ processor from Freescale, these conduction cooled blades address the
requirements of the most demanding DOD programs, combining high performance I/O streaming features and scalable HPC clustering
capabilities. "With this new Conduction Cooled offering, CSPI delivers on its commitment to bring the advantages
of the FastCluster open platform to extreme environmental conditions. Rugged COTS applications benefit from the FastCluster
architecture when power consumption, space and weight are at a premium and scalability is required," said Alexander R.
Lupinetti, President, and CEO of CSP Inc. Conduction-cooled FastCluster blades are
designed to the IEEE 1101.2 standard and CSPI's Level III environmental specification to insure reliable system operation when
subjected to wide temperature ranges, moisture, vibration or extreme shock, or dirty or corrosive atmospheres and environments
with little or no airflow. The new FastCluster conduction cooled
blades will be available in dual and quad processor versions on a single 6U blade. The dual processor version is an ideal
choice to address high performance I/O streaming requirements offering two independent Myrinet PowerPC 7447 compute nodes and
two independent PMC slots. Each streaming node is directly interfaced to the backplane Myrinet switch fabric. The quad
processor version targets high compute density requirements with four independent PowerPC 7447 compute nodes interconnected
with a 16 port Myrinet switch (full duplex). The FastCluster 2000 SERIES architecture supports 1 GB/s of interconnect to the
backplane Myrinet clustering fabric via the VME PO connector (VITA 26 Myrinet ANSI Standard). "Today we are expanding our COTS offering
by introducing the first Scalable, Open, Conduction Cooled Embedded Cluster" said Bernard Pelon, Director of Product
Research. The new dual and quad conduction cooled blades
leverage the established open software environment currently available for the FastCluster convection cooled platform. The
FastCluster standard development platform includes: the VSIPL and ISSPL Optimized Signal Processing Libraries for PowerPC
AltiVec, the optimized MPI Message Passing Interface over Myrinet, the VxWorks™ Real Time Kernel and Tornado Development
Environment and the Linux OS and Open Source Development Package.
The FastCluster 220R is targeted to DoD programs with the ever-increasing need for fast and accurate digital signal and data processing for Command, Control,
Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) applications. The FastCluster 220R platform delivers peak performance in three
critical areas offering teraflop’s of scalable compute power (100’s of PowerPC AltiVec™ processing nodes) across several chassis, Gigabyte’s of scalable bi-section
bandwidth (Myrinet™ Clustering Technology), and Gigabyte’s of scalable sensor I/O (40 PMC’s per chassis).
A FastCluster 220R multi-chassis configuration delivers extreme compute power density while each chassis, with a volume under 4 ¾ cubic
feet [11U(H) x 17"(W) x 25"(D)], remains easily handled and deployed in the harsh and confined environments of shipboard, airborne, and land-
mobile platforms. The 220R is an air-cooled system designed to meet Level III Ruggedization with optimized airflow, enhanced structural integrity and reduced electromagnetic
interference. All 220R modules (chassis shell, backplane, compute blades, line cards, power supply and blowers) are manufactured and tested to comply with the MIL specifications
required by DoD programs for shock and vibration, EMC/EMI, electrical, extended operating temperature ranges, altitude requirements and high levels of relative humidity. The 220R chassis supports twenty (20) 6U rugged compute blades with a high performance backplane switched fabric using the "Myrinet on
VME" (ANSI/VITA 26-1998) standard. Each chassis integrates three high speed 9U Myrinet Serial Fiber line cards offering 12 GBytes/s of built-in external clustering capability to
other chassis. Compute blades and lines cards support live insertion from the front of the chassis and coupled with the plug-in power supply and blowers contribute to the efficient use
of space and low mean-time-to-repair features of the new platform. The FastCluster 220R populated with the latest StarGate, the 2924R rugged blade (PowerPC AltiVec 7457 @ 1GHz, 1GB memory per node),
offers a system enabled with fast booting from a cold start, error-correcting memory, hot-swappable hardware, power on self-test and a flexible software environment. Supporting a
VxWorks™/Tornado Real Time Kernel, Linux 2.4 OS and open source, MPI (Message Passing Interface) industry standard cluster computing environment, and two optimized AltiVec Signal Processing Libraries (ISSPL-ALT & VSIPL)
the system adapts to the programming requirements of varied DoD applications. The StarGate 2924R is designed to meet Level III Ruggedization specifications for shock, vibration,
relative humidity, altitude and temperature. Manufactured with a thermal/stiffener rib the blade operates reliably in extended
temperature ranges and meets MIL-STD-810A for shock and vibration. When integrated into CSPI's FastCluster 220R rugged chassis the
blade also complies with the MIL-STD-461D for EMC/EMI and MIL-STD-704A for aircraft power. The structural design of the blade
optimizes the use of the space delivering maximum performance, ease in maintenance, higher mean-time-between failures and a lower
mean-time-to-repair. Driven by the 1 GHz Motorola 7457 PowerPC
microprocessors with AltiVec™ technology the StarGate 2924R provides exceptional processing power, versatile I/O, a large memory
configuration (1 GB of ECC SDRAM), high data bandwidth and low power consumption all in a rugged, single slot 6U VME package. The
StarGate 2924R is equipped with two independent processing nodes, each with access to two 64-bit/66 MHz PCI buses. The unique design
of the StarGate, supporting two fast PCI buses per processor, enables concurrent I/O streaming and data processing. Responding to the varied programming requirements of
DoD applications, the blade supports VxWorks™/Tornado Real Time Kernel, Linux 2.4 OS and open source, MPI (Message Passing
Interface) industry standard cluster computing environment as well as two optimized AltiVec Signal Processing Libraries (ISSPL-ALT
& VSIPL). Offering a platform based on industry-standards and open source software reduces application development time, expediting
time to deployment.
CSPI Ships New FastCluster 220R BILLERICA, Massachusetts, December 17, 2004 - CSP Inc. (NASDAQ:
CSPI) MultiComputer Division, a leading supplier of embedded high-performance cluster computing systems, today announced it has shipped its new Ruggedized Embedded COTS Cluster, the FastCluster 220R, to a major defense contractor. The CSPI team and FastCluster 220R were selected for this program because of
their ability to deliver a high quality product conforming to the exacting MIL specifications of the program and have it available for on-time deployment. CSPI, working in collaboration with the
customer and key partners, promptly developed and delivered an air-cooled system meeting Level III Ruggedization requirements for airflow, structural integrity, operating temperature range,
shock, vibration and EMC/EMI. The FastCluster 220R with its dense, rugged packaging, outstanding performance, and open architecture using Linux and Myrinet clustering technology is ideal
for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) applications intended for deployment in the harsh and confined
environments of shipboard, airborne, and land-mobile platforms. "We are pleased to see our core FastCluster Linux based
technology being deployed for a very critical DoD application. Facing a challenging delivery schedule, the CSPI team demonstrated the advantage of a COTS plus approach to achieve a major
program milestone" said Alexander R. Lupinetti, President, CEO of CSP Inc. The FastCluster 220R delivers peak performance in three critical areas
offering teraflop’s of scalable compute power (100’s of PowerPC AltiVec™ processing nodes) across several chassis, Gigabyte’s of scalable bi-section bandwidth (Myrinet™
Clustering Technology), and Gigabyte’s of scalable sensor I/O.
CSP Inc. Supplies Lockheed Martin with FastCluster 2942 Blades for Advanced Warning Airborne Surveillance Radar BILLERICA, Massachusetts, October 26, 2004 - CSP Inc. (NASDAQ:
CSPI) MultiComputer Division, a leading supplier of embedded high-performance cluster computing systems, today announced
it has shipped FastCluster 2942 blades to Lockheed Martin for the System Development and Demonstration (SD&D) phase of the Advanced Hawkeye (AHE)) program.
The Advanced Hawkeye will have computerized radar, Identification Friend or Foe and electronic surveillance sensors to provide early warning, threat analysis against potentially hostile air and surface targets. The AHE team will use the FastCluster
2942 blades in their next generation radar, which will begin to replace the current AN/APS-145 airborne radar in 2010. During the SD&D
phase the Navy will use five radar systems for qualification, reliability and flight-testing.
The FastCluster 2942 blade was selected for this program because of the outstanding performance provided by the system design.
Utilizing a 1 GHz Motorola 7457 high performance, low power, 32-bit PowerPC microprocessor with a full 128-bit implementation of
AltiVec™ technology and a 1 GB memory subsystem the blade delivers 32 GFLOPS of computational power, twice that of previous
generation FastCluster products. Maintaining a compact 6U VME footprint, the FastCluster 2942 blade is designed with four processors directly on the motherboard, eliminating mezzanines, in order to maximize airflow and cooling. This dense packaging is ideal for space conscious military applications.
In collaboration with Lockheed Martin, CSPI will produce a rugged version of this product to meet the environmental conditions required for airborne radar. Available with a choice of system software the FastCluster
2942 blade can be configured to take advantage of the open source Linux operating system complete with GNU toolkit or the industry standard VxWorks™ real-time operating system and
the Tornado II development tools suite. Both software environments include CSPI’s highly optimized ISSPL-ALT and VSIPL math libraries and
the Message Passing Interface (MPI) library for interprocessor communications. The FastCluster software environment promotes cross-platform compatibility as well as the
design of portable code for rapid development and improved time to deployment. "Supporting a design strategy that draws upon open
source software, conformance to standards and enabling technologies is key to reducing the cost of ownership for our defense customers", stated William E. Bent, Jr.,
General Manager and Vice President of CSPI MultiComputer Division.
CSP Inc. Reports Second-Quarter Fiscal 2005 Financial Results
BILLERICA,
MA, May 9, 2005 - CSP Inc. (Nasdaq:CSPI), a provider of IT Solutions, systems integration services and dense
cluster computing systems, today reported financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2005 ended March 31, 2005.
For the second quarter of fiscal 2005, CSP Inc., reported that sales increased
56 percent to $19.0 million from $12.2 million in the year-earlier quarter. CSP's second-quarter net income increased by 57 percent to $750,000
or $0.20 per diluted share as compared to $478,000 or $0.13 per diluted share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2004.
For the first six months ended March 31, 2005, the Company reported sales of
$33.3 million, an increase of 39 percent from sales of $24.0 million for the first six months of fiscal 2004. For the six-month period
of fiscal 2005, the Company reported a 295 percent increase in net income to $987,000 or $0.26 per diluted share as compared to $250,000
or $0.07 per diluted share for the same period in the prior year.
"CSP reported outstanding top-and bottom-line results in the second
quarter," stated Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Alexander R. Lupinetti. "This performance is the result of our
success in attracting new customers across our businesses with innovative products and solutions."
Systems "Our MultiComputer Group's excellent second-quarter
performance reflects shipments of equipment from previous contract wins for our open system multicomputers," said Lupinetti. "During
the second quarter, we made the first shipment of StarGate 2923 and FastCluster 2942 open system Multicomputers as part of the major
international contract win we announced last quarter. These Multicomputers will be used for sonar applications."
"We also completed the shipments of our FastCluster 2942 blades to
Lockheed Martin for the Development and Demonstration phase of the U.S. Navy's Advanced Hawkeye program (now designated the Hawkeye E-2D)
for qualification, reliability and flight testing. The Hawkeye E-2D is a tactical battle management, airborne early warning, and command
and control aircraft. Going forward, we will receive royalty payments each time Lockheed Martin builds and ships prototypes."
Services and Systems Integration "Business also was very strong at our MODCOMP
division, where we are seeing robust demand for our integration consulting services for complex IT environments," Lupinetti said.
"We experienced shortened sales cycles, and were able to close business that we had expected to receive in subsequent quarters."
"We had a great quarter for new business at MODCOMP's German
and U.S. subsidiaries. In Germany, large companies are turning to MODCOMP for servers and storage outsourcing and maintenance as well as
network security infrastructure services. MODCOMP's U.S.-based Systems and Solutions Division (SSD), which provides best-of-breed solutions
for integrated IT environments, continues to gain market share in a robust demand environment. We also made progress in hiring additional
salespeople at SSD to capitalize on growth opportunities in that market."
Going Forward "We expect that MODCOMP will continue to grow
with the market demand. In addition, our open source multicomputers are well positioned in the competitive defense marketplace and we
will continue to record revenue from existing contracts," concluded Lupinetti.
CSP Inc. Announces Sale of Scanalytics, Inc.
BILLERICA,
MA, July 1, 2005 - CSP Inc. (Nasdaq:CSPI), a provider of IT Solutions, systems integration services and dense
cluster computing systems, today announced the sale of the assets of its Scanalytics, Inc. subsidiary to Atto Bioscience, Inc.
in a cash transaction valued at $453,000.
A developer of quantitative image analysis software for the life sciences
and biotechnology research community, Scanalytics' software is used by research scientists in life science research
institutions worldwide. Atto Bioscience, a subsidiary of Beckton, Dickinson and Company, specializes in optical
instrumentation, software, and reagents for real-time analysis of interactions taking place in living cells.
CSP Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alexander R. Lupinetti
said, "Although Scanalytics has expanded its software product lines and its indirect channel partner relationships,
its business has become increasingly non-strategic for CSP. This transaction will allow us to focus all of our assets
and energies on the MultiComputer Division and MODCOMP - CSP's core businesses - where we continue to see solid
prospects for growth."
Linux for the Embedded Processor CSPI systems have been designed for embedded applications, accommodating
a compressed kernel, a boot file system, static network routes and user application code in a 32 MB flash.
CSPI’s release of Linux 2.6, with features specifically designed to enhance use in the embedded market, is in development and will be available soon.
Reconnecting with military program requirements for performance and interoperablity Standards and trade organizations such as the VMEbus International Trade Association (VITA) and the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG),
have worked for years to propose true ANSI standards for high-speed serial-switched networks, and in some cases are looking for the holy grail of switched fabrics.
This profusion of offerings does not guarantee that U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) requirements will be easy to meet, or that open-systems solutions will prevail.
There is a real risk, in fact, that many switched fabrics with standards-based physical layers will differentiate themselves only by their proprietary software stack and proprietary
application programming interfaces (APIs), thus reestablishing the traditional vendor lock that is part of too many of today’s commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions.
Fabrics have a longer life span than other technologies such as processors, which are replaced every 12 months. Systems designers must consider all the implications of this carefully;
the stakes are high in risks and hidden costs, and those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat its mistakes. Accordingly, we will ask what have we learned, where are we today,
an where do we want to be?
Read the complete article in Military & Aerospace Electronics May, 2005 or by following this link:
Reconnecting with military program requirements for performance and interoperability
Feature Products
CSPI In the
News
Ruggedized System Supplied to Critical Defense Program
Technology Demonstration
ASIA Flight Experiment
Corporate
News
At a Glance
CSPI’s current release of Linux 2.4 includes:
and has been updated to provide support for the following PMC Modules: Gigabit Ethernet, all Myrinet-2000 PMC Modules, Embedded Flash Drive and Dual Fibre Channel.
Long Beach, CA October 11, 2005
San Diego, CA October 13, 2005
Moorestown, NJ October 25, 2005
Washington, DC October 27, 2005
The Ninth Annual Workshop on High Performance Computing
MIT Lincoln Labs, Lexington, MA
September 20-22, 2005
GSPx 2005 Pervasive Signal Processing
Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA
October 24-27, 2005