Supercomputers and their use

Part 1 Introducing supercomputers: significance of supercomputers. Part 2 Organization of building blocks: input/output processor - IOP central memory secondary storage - SSD virtual memory schemes memory error correction - SECDED central processor unit - CPU function units vector operations parallel operations instruction buffers exchange mechanism - interrupt input/output section software influences. Part 3 Supercomputer architecture in the 1970s: the CDC 7600 vector processors array processors. Part 4 Supercomputer technologies: historical bipolar devices MOS devices Gallium arsenide (GaAs) Josephson junction technology interconnections other devices. Part 5 Supercomputers of the 1980s - made in the USA: the Cyber 205 architecture the Cray X-MP architecture the Cray-2 architecture the heterogeneous element processor (HEP) architecture. Part 6 Supercomputers of the 1980s - made in Japan: the HITAC S-810/20 FACOM VP systems from Fujitsu the NEC SX-2. Part 7 Scientific computation: correctness of answers numbers - their range and precision. Part 8 Software and scalar optimization: the birth of FORTRAN programme monitoring tools programme complexity analysis. Part 9 Vectorization: vector processing automatic vectorization conditional vector merge procedures FORTRAN programme tuning tools. Part 10 Aspects of supercomputer performance: the scalar effect on programme performance peak vs sustained performance multiple processors partially out of memory calculations MIMD architecture. Part 11 Examples of practical applications: oceanography National Environmental Research Council numerical weather prediction three-dimensional time-dependent geophysical convection the problem of the stability of the solar system seismic processing on the Cray oil reservoir simulation parallel processing in a plasma simulation problem using the particle-in-cell method large eddy simulation (LES) the impact of computational methods in aircraft design feature films from digital productions. Part 12 Future developments: the market-place technologies supercomputers in the pipeline other systems with supercomputer potential. Appendix: - array features in FORTRAN 8x.