Compute Nodes
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GP16 Compute node, component side
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GP16 Solder side with jumpers
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Compute nodes inside the XP-E rack
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Compute (and some I/O) nodes in XP-E rack
The compute boards came in two variants, the GP16 with 16 MB of memory and two CPUs, and the MP16 with three CPUs. Each node had a B-NIC interface that connected to the mesh routers on the backplane. The compute nodes were diskless and performed all I/O over the mesh. During system software development a light-pen was duct-taped to the status LED on one board and a timer interrupt was used to bit bang a serial port.
The B-NIC ASIC is the square chip with the heat-sink. Like contemporary CPUs, the i860 did not require any heat sink.
Read more about this topic: Intel Paragon
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