The 4D-MP graphics superworkstation: computing+graphics=40 MIPS+MFLOPS and 100000 lighted polygons per second

Author

Baskett, F. ; Jermoluk, Tom ; Solomon, Doug

fYear

1988

fDate

Feb. 29 1988-March 3 1988

Firstpage

468

Lastpage

471

Abstract

The 4D-MP graphics superworkstation, which brings 40 MIPS (million instructions per second) of computing performance to a graphics superworkstation is described. It also delivers 40 MFLOPS (million floating-point operations per second) of geometry processing performance, enabling 100000 lighted, four-sided, concave-tested polygons to be processed per second. This level of computing and graphics processing in an office-environment workstation is made possible by using the fastest available RISC (reduced-instruction-set computer) microprocessors in a single shared-memory multiprocessor design driving a tightly coupled, highly parallel graphics system. Aggregate sustained data rates of >1 Gbyte/s are achieved by a hierarchy of buses in a balanced system designed to avoid bottlenecks.<>

Keywords

engineering workstations; parallel machines; reduced instruction set computing; 1 Gbyte/s; 40 MFLOPS; 40 MIPS; 4D-MP graphics superworkstation; RISC processor; balanced system; graphics processing; graphics superworkstation; office-environment workstation; parallel graphics system; shared-memory multiprocessor; Computer architecture; Computer graphics; Geometry; Hardware; Operating systems; Parallel processing; Real time systems; Silicon; Testing; Workstations;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Compcon Spring '88. Thirty-Third IEEE Computer Society International Conference, Digest of Papers

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA, USA

Print_ISBN

0-8186-0828-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CMPCON.1988.4913

Filename

4913