FCA-1 News Release
Mardi Larson, 612/683-3538

CRAY RESEARCH ANNOUNCES FIRST DIRECT
FDDI CONNECTION FOR ITS SUPERCOMPUTERS

New Channel Adapter Provides Up To Three Times
Transfer Speed at Lower Cost 

EAGAN, Minn., Jan. 6, 1994 -- Cray Research, Inc. announced
today the availability of the FCA-1 Channel Adapter, a built-in,
direct Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) connection for
its supercomputing systems that provides up to three times
faster FDDI transfer speeds at a lower cost than previous FDDI
interface options.  

Cray Research supercomputing systems are typically operated
in a heterogeneous networked computing environment,
according to Derek Robb, vice president of marketing for Cray
Research.   These systems reside on networks and are accessed
from a variety of workstations and personal computers and are
called upon to quickly interact with servers, mainframes,
storage systems and other devices on the network

"The Cray Research systems are a valued resource on the
computer network and are used for very fast, complex
calculations," he said.  "But fast calculations are of little use
if information can't quickly get into and out of the
supercomputing system.  The FDDI standard is important to
high-speed data transfer and the FCA-1 channel adapter will
benefit our customers with faster FDDI transfer rates at lower
costs." 

FDDI is an ANSI networking standard that uses fiber optic
technology as its transmission medium, said Wayne Roiger,
head of the networking group at Cray Research.   Cray was
active in the development of the FDDI standard, which is used
as a high-performance interconnection among computers,
supercomputers and peripheral equipment for a variety of
applications including high-speed file transfer, distributed
computing applications, and medium-speed graphics
generation, Roiger said.   He said the FDDI standard is also well-
suited as a high-speed backbone network for medium
performance local area networks (LANs). 
 
The FCA-1 adapter, built-in to the supercomputer's input-
output (I/O) subsystem, can transfer data at up to 70 megabits
per second, using industry standard protocols.  The direct FDDI
connection provided by the new FCA-1 channel adapter means
that Cray Research customers that want FDDI connections for
their Cray Research systems no longer are required to purchase
more expensive FDDI interface boxes from third party vendors. 

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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