Cray Inc. Reports Cray SV1ex Supercomputer Will Have Stronger Performance, Price/Performance Than Previously Indicated; Performance Advances to High-End Supercomputer Level

    SEATTLE--April 3, 2001--Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. today said its Cray SV1ex(TM) enhanced product line, on schedule to begin shipping this quarter, will be substantially more powerful and provide better price/performance than previously indicated.
    "We've been able to make the Cray SV1ex more powerful without increasing its pricing or compromising its industry-leading reliability," said Cray Inc. Chairman and CEO Jim Rottsolk. "Its underlying technology has increased performance to levels previously achieved only on high-end supercomputers and offers a smooth migration path for current customers." Cray Inc. has advance orders for Cray SV1ex supercomputers from the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and other unnamed customers.
    A 67 percent boost in processor speed (2 billion calculations per second, or gigaflops) over the current midrange Cray SV1(TM) system, combined with an effective doubling of sustained memory bandwidth (40 gigabytes per second) and a four-fold increase in maximum memory size (128 gigabytes), will enable this product line to deliver high-end supercomputer performance cost-effectively on a range of important applications, said Gary Shorrel, Cray SV1ex engineering program manager. "The system's improved clock speed of 500 MHz is one of the fastest for any supercomputer."
    "Each Cray SV1ex processor will have a peak performance of two gigaflops, rather than the 1.8 gigaflops indicated in our November 2000 product announcement," said Shorrel. "In a single-chassis system, peak performance now tops out at 64 gigaflops." He said Cray SV1ex performance will be improved even further by the system's extremely high-speed cache memory, a unique feature among vector supercomputers.
    The Cray SV1ex system is expected to excel in established markets such as automotive design, and burgeoning new sectors such as bioinformatics. "For the auto industry's most demanding Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) jobs, the Cray SV1ex typically will sustain over 500 megaflops per processor, allowing it to run virtually any NVH job overnight instead of in several days," said Jef Dawson, Cray SV1ex applications manager. "The system's unique architecture should allow it to run fundamental bioinformatics problems substantially faster than any other supercomputer available."
    The Cray SV1ex system is the technological forerunner to the Cray SV2(TM) supercomputer, due out in the second half of 2002, and is a binary-compatible upgrade path for Cray SV1 and Cray J90(TM) customers. For supercomputer applications that vectorize and cache well, the Cray SV1ex provides equivalent throughput to a full Cray T932(TM) system at one-thirtieth of the cost. For high-end vector problems requiring additional capabilities, especially greater bandwidth, Cray plans to offer the NEC SX-5 supercomputer under a worldwide distribution agreement expected to close within 60 days.
    Enhancements scheduled for availability this quarter include improved clock speed and cache, field upgradeability for Cray SV1 and Cray J90 systems, a new memory subsystem (approximately 40 gigabytes/second), optional 32- or 96-gigabyte solid-state storage device (SSD), and CPU and memory field upgradeability for Cray SV1 systems.
    For more information on the Cray SV1ex series, visit www.cray.com or contact your local Cray sales representative.

    About Cray Inc.

    Cray Inc. designs, builds and sells high-performance MPP, vector processor and general-purpose parallel computer systems. The company has leading edge technology, multiple product platforms, nearly 900 employees, a worldwide installed base of supercomputer systems, major manufacturing and service capabilities and extensive global customer relationships. Cray believes its Multithreaded Architecture and Cray T3E(TM), Cray SuperCluster(R) and Cray SV2 systems together represent the future of supercomputing. Go to www.cray.com for more information on the company.

    Safe Harbor Statement

    This press release contains forward-looking statements. There are certain factors that could cause Cray's execution plans to differ materially from those anticipated by the statements above. Among such risk factors are expected delivery and acceptance times, and timely availability of commercially acceptable components from third party suppliers. For a discussion of such risks, and other risks that could affect Cray's future performance, please see "Factors That Could Affect Future Results" in Cray Inc.'s most recent SEC Form 10-K.

    Note to Editors: Cray and SuperCluster are registered trademarks, and Cray SV1ex, Cray SV1, Cray SV2, Cray T3E, Cray J90 and Cray T932 are trademarks, of Cray Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.