FUJITSU AP3000

The Fujitsu AP3000 was a scalar-parallel supercomputer. Instead of using vector processing units, the AP3000 derived its high-speed performance from its distributed-memory parallel server construction that gave superb performance scalability by linking general-purpose workstations together with a high-speed network. Fujitsu announced the AP3000 in March 1996 as the successor to the AP1000, a supercomputer that operated on the same principle. The AP3000’s most distinctive feature was the newly developed high-speed AP-NET communication network, which linked as many as 1,024 nodes, where each node was a workstation with a 64-bit UltraSPARC architecture. AP-NET was a network with a 2D torus topology and was built with routing controller LSIs that relayed messages.