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Silcon Graphics News Flash

2 December 1998

Silcon Graphics News Flash

     Silicon Graphics Supercomputer Achieves Highest Level of Performance
                   In Real-World Automobile Crash Analysis

    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec. 1 -- Demonstrating superior
performance with an important industrial application, Silicon Graphics, Inc.
reported that its Origin2000(TM) supercomputer set a new record
when running advanced automobile crash analysis software. The Origin2000
reached two gigaflops (two billion floating point calculations per second) of
sustained performance with LS-DYNA, a widely used analysis program that
predicts how production cars and their occupants will respond to real-world
events.
    LS-DYNA is used by automobile manufacturers in simulations, which are run
to optimize vehicle crashworthiness and ensure that autos meet government
safety regulations. Bringing the highest level of computing power to these
simulations is important because it helps manufacturers perform efficient
testing and produce better, safer cars.
    "This is the first time we've sustained two-gigaflop performance running
LS-DYNA in full-contact crash simulations," said John Hallquist, president of
Livermore Software Technology Corp., which developed LS-DYNA. "We didn't think
this level of performance would be achieved until late 1999, and it has
important implications for automobile design engineers."
    The testing was conducted by running LS-DYNA on a 250 MHz Origin2000
system, using modeling information on a Plymouth Neon from the National Crash
Analysis Center (NCAC). The test results were 1.6 gigaflops of sustained
performance with 30 CPUs and 2.2 gigaflops with 48 CPUs. The results
demonstrate the solution is scalable up to a much higher number of processors
than normally used for industrial applications.
    The test results provide another real-world example of Silicon Graphics'
"Power of Insight," the ability to scale to thousands of processors, visualize
many solutions at extremely high resolutions and manage the data collected.
The end results are better science and better products.
    Silicon Graphics Inc. is a leading supplier of visual computing and
high-performance systems.
    All press materials are available on the World Wide Web via
http://www.sgi.com/newsroom.
    NOTE:  Silicon Graphics is a registered trademark, and Origin2000 is a
trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned are
properties of their respective owners.