Departmental Supercomputer 
Mardi Larson, 612/683-3538


NEW CRAY RESEARCH PROGRAM CREATES ATTRACTIVE
MIGRATION PATH FOR ITS DEPARTMENTAL
SUPERCOMPUTER CUSTOMERS

EAGAN, Minn., Jan. 10, 1994 -- Cray Research, Inc. (NYSE:CYR)
today announced a program designed to address market demand
for increasingly powerful, production supercomputing systems
beginning well under the $1 million price point, the company
said. 

Under the terms of the program, customers ordering CRAY EL98
systems, Cray Research's current departmental supercomputer
system, and a next-generation system, currently in final
development, are eligible for lower combined pricing,
according to Bob Ewald, Cray Research chief operating officer,
supercomputer operations.   Volume shipments for the next-
generation departmental supercomputer from Cray Research
are slated to begin in first-quarter 1995 and customers in the
new program will receive priority shipments at that time, he
said.  The program applies to combined orders received on or
after October 1, 1993.   

Pricing for the CRAY EL98 systems begins at approximately
$300,000 (U.S.).  The next-generation departmental
supercomputer systems are expected to be 6 to 12 times more
powerful than the company's current departmental systems at
the same price points, he said.  "We expect both these systems
to significantly expand Cray's installed base in the
competitive departmental computing market."  

Since introducing the company's first departmental
supercomputing system in fourth quarter 1991, he said, Cray
Research has received more than 200 orders for these
systems, more than half from new-name customers, and has
become a key player in this market sector.  There are more
than 150 Cray Research departmental systems installed to
date, he said. 

The systems have also helped Cray Research to penetrate new
markets -- such as the financial, construction and auto-
industry supplier markets -- and new geographies, such as the
former Eastern Bloc and new areas of Southeast Asia. 

The next-generation departmental supercomputer systems are
expected to have the highest peak performance and the highest
sustained-to-peak performance of any system in their class,
according to Ewald.  The 1995 systems will be binary
compatible with the company's current departmental products. 
"This means that applications software programs running on
the current products will run on the next-generation products
without modification," he said.   The next-generation
departmental systems are also compatible with larger Cray
Research parallel vector supercomputers, including the top-of-
the-line CRAY C916 system, and can be connected to the
company's CRAY T3D massively parallel processing system.

To bring Cray Research supercomputing power to a broader
range of customers, primarily those in the commercial and
industrial marketplace, Cray Research announced the
company's first departmental supercomputing systems, the
CRAY Y-MP EL series, in late 1991.   In March 1993, Cray
Research announced the follow-on CRAY EL98 systems,
providing more than twice the peak performance of the earlier
products at the same prices.  In July 1993, the company
announced its smallest, lowest-price system ever, the CRAY
EL92 deskside supercomputer system, priced from $125,000
(U.S.).

Departmental supercomputing systems are small
supercomputers that are typically priced low enough to be
acquired out of departmental, rather than corporate, budgets,
or by smaller organizations that can't afford higher price
points.   In the past, these systems have also been called entry-
level supercomputers or minisupercomputers.  The market for
scientific and technical computing systems priced below $1
million, which includes many departmental systems, is
expected to have a compounded aggregate growth rate of more
than 20 percent over the next few years, according to various
experts. 

"We have a long-term commitment to this market," said Ewald.  
The dramatic performance gains anticipated for Cray's next-
generation departmental systems are based on the company's
recent progress in transferring the computational portion of
its high-end central processing unit (CPU) onto two custom-
designed integrated circuits (chips), he said.

Cray Research creates the most powerful, highest-quality
computational tools for solving the world's most challenging
scientific and industrial problems.

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