
\noindent
{\bf
Ardent Titan
}

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{\bf
Vector Register, Shared-Memory Parallel Architecture - Graphics Supercomputer
}

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The company was founded by Allen Michels (from Convergent Tech) in November
1985, and was originally called Dana Computer Incorporated.
Financed by venture capital and Kubota Ltd. of Japan, a \$2.5 billion
worldwide industrial equipment manufacturer.

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Heavy emphasis on interactive graphics for large
computational problems. Graphics boards are integrated with system
and many graphics calculations can be done in vector units.

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{\bf Configuration:}
One to four processors are connected to a shared memory of
between 8 and 128 Mbytes through a 256 Mbyte/sec bus. There are
ten slots on the bus, of which six are available for memory boards
or CPU boards.

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Each CPU has a MIPS chip scalar unit rated at 16 mips with a 16
Kbyte instruction cache and a 16 Kbyte data cache.  The vector
unit uses a custom designed chip with divide, a
pipelined multiplier, and a pipelined adder/subtracter as independent
arithmetic function units.
Data is streamed from shared
memory direct to the vector registers via 1 store and 2 load pipes.
The vector registers are 8192 words long and can be configured
in any mode between 8192 registers of one word each to 32
registers each of 256 words. Each word is 64-bits long.  The clock
cycle time is 62.5 nsec, and each vector processor is rated at 16
Mflops, giving a maximum potential of 64 Mflops.
Gather/scatter is supported by the hardware.

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Memory uses 1 Mbit chips, and each memory board contains 8,
16, or 32 Mbytes. Interleaving is 8-way on odd boards and 16-way on
paired boards of the same size.
A maximum of four boards can be used.
Access rate is 256 Mbyte/sec.

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A major feature of the Titan is its integrated graphics
support. Up to two graphics boards can be attached to the bus and
are powerful processors in their own right. All pixel manipulation
is done on the graphics boards minimizing traffic between them and
the vector processors, which can be employed on related or
independent computation to the graphics processing. Graphics is
supported by PHIGS+ and CGI as well as
Ardent's own software package called Dor\'{e} (Dynamic
Object Rendering Environment), which handles image representations
from wire-frame through flat and smooth-shading to global ray
tracing.

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Standard interfaces to LANs and I/O devices are supported
through an I/O board connected to a single bus slot. The I/O board
supports two 4 Mbyte/sec
SCSI channels, a keyboard, a mouse, Ethernet, 4 RS-232
ports, and 1 parallel port and can be fitted with a 15
Mbyte/sec VME bus adapter for SMD and other devices, such as
knob-boxes, tablets, and stereo viewers.

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{\bf Software:}
The operating system is fully compatible with the standard
AT\&T System V.3 UNIX operating system and Berkeley 4.3 Unix with
enhancements for communications, high I/O bandwidth, and large
applications. Asynchronous reads and a fast file transfer of 1000
Kbyte/sec using disk striping are also supported.

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\noindent
Vectorizing and parallelizing compilers are available for
both Fortran and C and generate a common intermediate form for
subsequent code generation. Standard Fortran 77 is supported along
with extensions compatible with the VAX/VMS extensions. CRAY
vectorizing directives are also recognized. The parallelism which
is automatically detected by the compiler is fine-grained
microtasking and several multitasking primitives are also
supported. A symbolic debugger, much extended from the basic UNIX
debugger, is available.  Both 32 and 64-bit floating-point arithmetic
is supported, and the arithmetic conforms to the IEEE standard 754.

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{\bf Performance:}
The performance on the LINPACK (100 x 100) benchmark on one
processor is
over 6 Mflops, with 24 Mflops performance on two processors for
the 1000 x 1000
LINPACK test. The maximum possible computational rate is 64
Mflops. 

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\noindent
{\bf Applications:}
Application agreements are being reached with companies
supplying a wide range of applications software. Areas included
are Mechanical CAE (NISA, DYNA3D),
CFD
(PLOT3D, ARC2D, KIVA, NEKTON, VSAERO,
FLO87, PHOENICS), Computer-aided molecular design
(BIOGRAF, GAUSSIAN 86, MOPAC, AMPAC, AMBER, CHARRM, BIOSYM, and
COSMIC), Seismic (LANDMARK), Animation (WAVEFRONT), and
Mathematical software (IMSL, NAG, MATHADVANTAGE, MATLAB, LINPACK,
EISPACK).

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{\bf Status:}
\noindent
Beta test sites in 1987.  General delivery of one- and
two-processor machines both in the United States and worldwide by
May/June 1988, and four-processor machines in 4Q
1988.

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\noindent
All packaged systems include a 380 Mbyte hard disk, 1/4"
cartridge tape, operating system, TCP/IP, C compiler,
linker/debugger, Dor\'{e}, X-windows V.11 and UNIX Navigator, a user
interface based on visual agents in the same style as Apple's
Macintosh and DRI's GEM, together with a tutorial version of Smalltalk
80, 32 plane graphics
subsystem, 19" 1024 x 1024 color monitor, 50 ft video cable,
keyboard, mouse, Ethernet connectors, and four RS 232 connectors.

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{\bf Cost:}
The cost of the minimum packaged system which has one processor
and 8 Mbytes of memory is \$80K. A two-processor, 32-Mbyte system
is priced at \$120K. All systems are field upgradable with a
separate processor priced at \$21K and a 32 Mbyte memory board at
\$16K. The Fortran compiler is \$5K. NFS is \$350.
Dor\'{e} source code licences are available for non-Titan hardware
at \$200
(unsupported) for non-commercial customers and \$10,500
(supported) for commercial customers.
CRAY- and SUN-specific versions are available if required.

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Markets:\\
CAD/CAM/CAE\\
Molecular Modelling\\
Image Processing\\
Scientific/Engineering Research and Development\\
Computational Fluid Dynamics\\


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{\bf Contact:}

\noindent
Ardent Computer Corporation\\
880 West Maude Avenue\\
Sunnyvale, CA 94086\\
408-732-0400;     FAX 408-732-2806\\
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President and CEO: Allen Michels\\
VP Research and Development: Gordon Bell\\
Mathematical Software: Cleve Moler \\
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European Office\\
David G. Howes\\
Ardent Computer Limited\\
Brooke House Market Square\\
Aylesbury\\
Bucks HP20 1SN\\
England\\
(0296) 89911;   FAX (0296) 87123;   Telex 838811 BROOKE\\

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