page_title: Cray-3
section_title: Mechanical design
hierarchical_section_title: Cray-3 / Architecture / Mechanical design
caption_attribution_description: English: Cray-3 supercomputer "Brick" processor, taken at Computer History Museum, Mountain View, USA Polski: Procesor superkomputera Cray-3 "Brick", zdjęcie wykonane w Computer History Museum, Mountain View, USA
context_page_description: The Cray-3 was a vector supercomputer, Seymour Cray's designated successor to the Cray-2. The system was one of the first major applications of gallium arsenide semiconductors in computing, using hundreds of custom built ICs packed into a 1 cubic foot CPU. The design goal was performance around 16 GFLOPS, about 12 times that of the Cray-2.
  Work started on the Cray-3 in 1988 at Cray Research's development labs in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Other teams at the lab were working on designs with similar performance. To focus the teams, the Cray-3 effort was moved to a new lab in Colorado Springs, Colorado later that year. Shortly thereafter, the corporate headquarters in Minneapolis decided to end work on the Cray-3 in favor of another design, the Cray C90. In 1989 the Cray-3 effort was spun off to a newly formed company, Cray Computer Corporation.
  The launch customer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, cancelled their order in 1991 and a number of company executives left shortly thereafter. The first machine was finally ready in 1993, but with no launch customer, it was instead loaned as a demonstration unit to the nearby National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
context_section_description: The modules were held together in an aluminum chassis known as a "brick". The bricks were immersed in liquid fluorinert for cooling, as in the Cray-2. A four-processor system with 64 memory modules dissipated about 88 kW of power. The entire four-processor system was about 20 inches (510 mm) tall and front-to-back, and a little over 2 feet (0.61 m) wide.
  For systems with up to four processors, the processor assembly sat under a translucent bronzed acrylic cover at the top of a cabinet 42 inches (1.1 m) wide, 28 inches (0.71 m) deep and 50 inches (1.3 m) high, with the memory below it, and then the power supplies and cooling systems on the bottom. Eight and 16-processors system would have been housed in a larger octagonal cabinet. All in all, the Cray-3 was considerably smaller than the Cray-2, itself relatively small compared to other supercomputers.
  In addition to the system cabinet, a Cray-3 system also needed one or two (depending on number of processors) system control pods (or "C-Pods"), 52.5 inches (1.33 m) square and 55.3 inches (1.40 m) high, containing power and cooling control equipment.
caption: Complete processor "brick". The modules are visible inside, mounted vertically.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD", "Image Model": "C860L,D360L", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "v852u-74", "Image DateTime": "2005:05:28 15:50:21", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "284", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:05:28 15:50:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:05:28 15:50:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "1", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "11/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "954", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "792", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "886", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}