Convex Exemplar SPP1000, SPP1200, SPP1600

Quick Facts
Introduced 1994-1996
Period Maturity (III)
Series Mainframe
CPU 4-128
PA-7100 32-bit
PA-7200 32-bit
100-120 MHz
Caches 512 KB-2 MB L1
RAM 4 GB (CD)
2 GB (XA)
Design Crossbar
Drives 20 SCSI
Expansion 16 SBus (CD)
8 SBus (XA)
I/O SCSI
Console
SCI/CTI links (XA)

Convex Exemplar SPP1000, SPP1200 and SPP1600 are scalable mainframes with 32-bit PA-RISC HP PA-7100 and PA-7200 processors, released by Convex in 1994. Previous Convex designs used custom Convex processors, with the new SPP mainframes, Convex switched to HP PA-RISC processors, first 32-bit and later 64-bit, utilizing its partnership with HP and PRO.

In the early 1990s, Convex and HP started a close collaboration, which began with jointly marketed cluster-computing solutions based on HP 9000 in 1992. Soon after, HP licensed HP-UX Unix to Convex in 1993, then HP became a value-added reseller (VAR) for Convex before acquiring the company outright in 1995 and integrating it as Exemplar division.

Convex SPP Exemplar were used for compute-heavy workloads like Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Structural Analysis, Decision Support, Molecular Mechanics, Petroleum Exploration and much more.

Convex SPP1200
SPP1200XA © 1992 Convex

Convex SPP1000, SPP1200 and SPP1600 were available as CD Compact Design, XA eXtended Architecture hypernodes and XA clusters.

Convex Exemplar architecture is based on a 5x5 crossbar, a central internal switching component that connexts resources to each other by forming matrix connections between input and output ports. 5x5 because the crossbar has five ports for processors, memory and I/O.

Nodes and clusters are controlled by separate workstations, often IBM RS/6000 with AIX. HP 9000 715 workstations were also used as so-called teststations.

This was followed by SPP2000 from the HP Exemplar division. Development of the HP Convex Exemplar architecture peaked with HP 9000 V-Class servers: non-clusterable HP 9000 V2200 and V2250 and up to four-way clusterable HP 9000 V2500 and V2600.

System

Processors

SPP1600 had an unusual 2MB expanded primary cache
System CPU Speed L1 cache
Convex SPP1000/CD Compact 2-8 PA-7100 PA-RISC 32-bit 100 MHz 512 KB off-chip
Convex SPP1000/XA Hypernode 4-8 PA-7100 PA-RISC 32-bit 100 MHz 512 KB off-chip
Convex SPP1000/XA Cluster 4-128 PA-7100 PA-RISC 32-bit 100 MHz 2 MB off-chip
Convex SPP1200/CD Compact 4-16 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 2 MB off-chip
Convex SPP1200/XA Hypernode 8-16 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 2 MB off-chip
Convex SPP1200/XA Cluster 8-128 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 512 KB off-chip
Convex SPP1600/CD Compact 4-16 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 2 MB off-chip
Convex SPP1600/XA Hypernode 8-16 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 2 MB off-chip
Convex SPP1600/XA Cluster 8-128 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 2 MB off-chip
Convex SPP Exemplar Convex SPP Exemplar Convex SPP Exemplar
Convex SPP 1600/CD and XA © Convex 1996

Chipset

Exemplar chipset is based on a custom Convex design with Convex five-port crossbar, later improved on the SPP2000 with eight ports and used in HP V-Class. 

        _____           _______
 CPU1----\_|Agent|         |       |
          _|  1  |=\       | Cross |
 CPU2----/ |_____| |       |  bar  |
                   |250MB/s|       |
                   ========| 1.25  |
  ______   ______  |       |  GB/s |
 |Memory|_|CCMC1 | |   
 |Board1| |______|=/
 |______|    |
             |
            SCI
           Ring 1
    .        .             .       .
    .        .             .       .
    .        .             .       .
            _____          
 CPU7----\_|Agent|         |       |
          _|  4  |=\       | Cross |
 CPU8----/ |_____| |       |  bar  |
                   |250MB/s|       |
                   ========|       |
  ______   ______  |       |       |
 |Memory|_|CCMC4 | |       |_______|
 |Board4| |______|=/           |
 |______|    |              ___|___    _____
             |             |I/O    |  |      4-8
            SCI            |Control|==|----- SBus
           Ring 4          |_______|  |_____ I/O buses

Convex SPP100/1200/1600 Crossbar Architecture System Architecture

System buses

Expansion

Memory

Expansion cards

Storage

I/O ports

Clustering

Multiple SPP1x00/XA systems can be connected to form a single large system.

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Operating systems

Convex SPP Exemplar with PA-RISC processors exclusively run SPP-UX, a scalable Unix based on Mach, developed by Convex for SPP1000 and SPP2000 mainframes with up to 512 processors, released between 1993 and 1999. SPP-UX implemented a distributed architecture that emulated HP-UX for developers but was very different below the userland.

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Performance

Convex SPP Exemplar were impressive but expensive scalar RISC servers, the second generation faster than other RISC architectures like UltraSPARC, MIPS and Intel. Convex with PA-RISC Exemplar technology competed on floating-point use cases (MFLOPS) with supercomputers, a long Convex tradition.

PA-RISC SPEC95 rate scores, Linpack MFLOPS (TPP) and HPLinpack GFLOPS (Rmax) scores
System Processor SPEC95
rate int/fp		 Linpack
TPP  Rmax
SPP1000 8 PA-7100 100 MHz
16 PA-7100 100 MHz
32 PA-7100 100 MHz
64 PA-7100 100 MHz		 751
965		 1.01

3.30
6.19
SPP1200 8 PA-7200 120 MHz
16 PA-7200 120 MHz
24 PA-7200 120 MHz
32 PA-7200 120 MHz		 656 1.02
2.03
2.83
3.96
SPP1600 8 PA-7200 120 MHz
16 PA-7200 120 MHz
32 PA-7200 120 MHz		 290
541
996		 383
744
1444		 934 1.45
2.84
5.45
SPEC95rate, Linpack MFLOPS (TPP) and HPLinpack GFLOPS (Rmax)
System Processor SPEC95
rate int/fp		 Linpack
TPP   Rmax
Cray T90 T932 32 Cray ECL 450 MHz 29360 61.80
HP 9000 V2500 32 PA-8500 440 MHz
16 PA-8500 440 MHz		 7481
8217		 31.59
17.47
AlphaServer HPC320
AlphaServer HPC160		 32 Alpha 21264 500 MHz
16 Alpha 21264 500 MHz		 7264
3837		 11779
6246
Cray SV1 24 Cray CMOS 300 MHz 10420 38.31
Convex SPP2000 64 PA-8000 180 MHz
16 PA-8000 180 MHz
1307		 6140
1413
4609		 27.56
7.78
AlphaServer 8400 32 Alpha 21164 625 MHz
8 Alpha 21164 625 MHz		 4504
1279		 4527
1212
3608		 17.96
Sun Starfire 32 Sun UltraSPARC-II 333 3480 3021 5187 17.91
SGI Origin 2000 16 R12000 300 MHz 2560 4224 3970 8.71
HP V2250 16 PA-8200 240 MHz 2209 2471 5935 10.65
HP V2200 16 PA-8200 200 MHz 1865 2312 4832 9.20
Sun Enterprise 6k 16 Sun UltraSPARC 250 1437 1965 3493 7.21
AlphaServer ES40 4 Alpha 21264 667 MHz 1390 2686 3804 4.11
HP 9000 T600 12 PA-8000 180 MHz 1192 1151
DG AViiON AV 20000 16 Pentium Pro 200 MHz 1007
Siemens RM600 720 24 R4400 250 MHz 921
HP 9000 K580 6 PA-8200 240 MHz 902 849
IBM RS/6000 SP 4 POWER3 375 MHz 845 1739 3700 4.64
HP Visualize C3600 1 PA-8600 552 MHz 379 576
Cray C90 1 Cray 238 MHz 902 2.92
HP 9000 D380 2 PA-8000 180 MHz 210 221

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Dimensions

System Height Width Depth Weight
SPP1200/XA 71cm 112cm 178cm 404kg
SPP1200/CD 46cm 99cm 89cm 159kg

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Documentation

Most documentation is only available at archive.org and other archives, with most official sources, articles and journals having disappeared in the 2000s.

Manuals

Articles

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