Cray/Media:        Steve Conway, 612/683-7133
Cray/Financial:    Bill Gacki, 612/683-7372

CRAY RESEARCH SAYS PIONEERING SOFTWARE WILL BE A
BOON TO PRODUCT DEVELOPERS

EAGAN, Minn., June 1, 1994 -- Cray Research (NYSE:CYR) today
introduced a pioneering software product that could save as
much as six months of time and hundreds of thousands of
dollars for engineers and researchers who develop new
products from automobiles to sporting equipment, and develop
new techniques in medicine and other fields. 

The new HEXAR software automatically converts raw CAD
(computer-aided design) data for any complex object into the
sophisticated three-dimensional computer models, or meshes,
engineers use to simulate and analyze new products using high-
performance computer systems, according to Reza Taghavi,
head of the company's HEXAR product development team.  HEXAR
software does this automatically, typically in minutes
compared with months for hand-generated meshes, he said.

"HEXAR software is a genuine breakthrough," he said.  "Until
now, engineers typically have had to take initial CAD data and
painstakingly hand-craft three-dimensional meshes using
workstation-based software before beginning computer
analysis of new product or component designs.  It could easily
take six months and $150,000 or more to develop a million-
element, hexahedral (six-sided "brick") mesh.  Now this
typically will take less than 30 minutes using HEXAR software
on a Cray Research supercomputer system."

HEXAR software is scheduled to be available next month for use
on Cray Research's full line of compatible parallel vector and
massively parallel processing (MPP) supercomputer systems,
which are priced from $150,000 in the U.S.  Pricing for the
HEXAR software product is according to computer platform and
begins at $18,000 (U.S.) for a paid-up license, he said.  

"Developing these sophisticated computer models is one of the
hidden barriers in moving to high-performance computer-aided
engineering (CAE)," Taghavi said. "Cray Research is the first in
the industry to create a complete, automatic, parallel solution
for this age-old problem."  He said other mesh-generating
software products available today either require substantial
manual intervention or don't produce meshes containing
hexahedrals, which are preferred for accurate modeling and
simulation.

"Combined with the speed of Cray Research hardware, HEXAR
software will make it easier for worldwide industry to move
from CAD to CAE,"  he said.  There is a patent pending on the
HEXAR software, he said, and Cray Research expects
substantial interest in the product from the automotive,
aerospace, chemical, civil engineering, casting and molding,
materials and plastics, electronics, semiconductor, and
biomedical industries.

Taghavi cited examples of real-world problems done at the
company that confirm the speed and effectiveness of the HEXAR
software.  For example, an 800,000-element mesh of an engine
block was developed in less than two hours, compared to more
than three months for the current approach.  HEXAR software
also automatically turned CAD data describing a human femur
(thigh) bone into a 20,000-element hexahedral mesh in less
than one minute.  Until now, creating computer models of such
complex organic shapes for biomedical research has been
difficult and time-consuming, he said.  "This technology could
be used to analyze aspects of illnesses or injuries and, for the
first time, run scenarios of corrective options quickly enough
to be useful."

Taghavi said Cray Research supercomputer systems are widely
used today for new product development.  "Cray Research
systems are used by all the major automakers to help design
new cars and trucks, as well as for many other types of
products and pursuits, including medical research.  The new
HEXAR automatic mesh generator will benefit all of these
fields."

According to Taghavi, HEXAR software produces meshes for the
most widely used CAE formats, including PATRAN, IDEAS, and
EnSight (formerly called Multi-Purpose Graphic System). 
Because of this, HEXAR software-generated meshes work with
nearly all third-party engineering analysis software packages
used by industry today, including ABAQUS, ANSYS, NASTRAN,
FIDAP, STAR-CD, FLOW-3D, PROCAST and MSC/EMAS.

Cray Research provides the leading supercomputing tools and
services to help solve customers' most challenging problems.