Bedrock

A crossbar ASIC in the C-brick that provides connections among the processors, the memory, the interconnection fabric, and the I/O subsystem. Each C-brick has one Bedrock ASIC.

brick

A functional subrack; for example, C-brick, R-brick; a 19-inch rack-mounted enclosure.

cabinet

See rack.

cable assembly

A group of conductors in a sheath with connectors on both ends.

cable management bracket

Secures cables to the side of a rack.

cable management clip

A device that secures a cable to a bracket.

cable management shelf

A horizontal bracket that supports routing of cables.

cable dock

A mechanical sleeve that provides a guide, strain relief and locking mechanism for attaching a connector to a bulkhead.

card

A printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) that typically has an edge connector and plugs into a subassembly.

carrier

A hardware fixture that attaches to one or more printed circuit board assemblies. The purpose of a carrier is to enable easy installation or removal of PCBAs from an enclosure. The following types of carriers exist:

• logic carrier

Attaches to a motherboard and/or a power board.

• PCI carrier

Attaches to a PCI card to enable insertion of the PCI card into I/O bricks without removing the I/O brick cover; this enables hot-plugging of PCI cards.

carrier actuator

A lever that, when moved, inserts or removes a card from a connector. The PCI carrier has a carrier actuator.

C-brick

A 19-inch rackmount enclosure that contains the memory and processors; performs the compute function for the SGI Origin 3000 series. Also referred to as the compute node.

channel

A communication path between two devices that uses a specific protocol. Additional devices cannot be added to the channel without reconfiguration of the channel. A channel provides the highest data rates for transfers. Example: the Xtown2 channel connects the C-brick and an I/O brick.

chassis

See rack.

compute node

See C-brick.

CPU

See processor.

Crosstalk

1. An I/O channel protocol name. 2. A single-ended I/O channel that uses the Crosstalk channel protocol. Crosstalk transfers data between Xbridge ASICs or between Xbridge and XC chips within a brick.

Crosstown

See Xtown

D-brick

The D-brick is a purchased disk enclosure that supports twelve disk drives. The D-brick is 4-U high and mounts in a standard 19-inch rack.

DIMM
(dual inline memory module)

A printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) that contains main and directory memory. Two DIMMs represent a bank of memory.

DPS
( distributed power supply)

One of six power supply units that are inserted into the power bay.

drive dock

The slot, compartment, or receptacle cavity within the chassis that receives the wrapper and provides connectivity for the hard drive.

harness assembly

A group of connectors that are interconnected by two or more cables.

hot plug

Hot plug requires that the device be deconfigured from the system prior to removing, adding, or replacing the device. After the new device is installed, action must be taken to reconfigure the system before the new device can be used. The system remains powered on and functioning during this operation. Examples of Hot Pluggable devices: PCI cards and disk drives.

hot swap

Hot swap is the ability to remove, add, or replace a device without informing the system. This action is taken with power on and the system functioning. Example: the cooling fans on a brick and the power supplies in the power bay are components that can be hot swapped.

I-brick

The rackmount enclosure that contains the electronics and hardware necessary to boot a system and supports four additional PCI cards. The I-brick is 4 U high and mounts in a standard 19-inch rack.

interconnection fabric

The interconnection fabric consists of a set of cables and routers that link together compute nodes (C-bricks).

L1 system controller

The brick-level system controller. It is responsible for power control and sequencing, environmental control and monitoring, initiation of reset, and the storage of identification and configuration information for its host brick. Also referred to as the Level 1 system controller.

L2 system controller

The rack-level system controller. It manages central communications for the rack and controls all the bricks in that rack. When an L2 is configured in a system, all L1 system controllers are connected to the L2 controller. Also referred to as the Level 2 system controller.

L2 touchscreen display

A 2.5-inch by 4-inch 70-position touchscreen display that is used to access system control information.

L3 system controller

The L3 system controller is a standalone workstation (or laptop) that runs the Linux operating system. The L3 system controller provides a central point of control for the entire system. Also referred to as the Level 3 system controller.

link

A one-to-one connection between two processors or nodes in a multiprocessor computer system.

Merced

An Intel code name/trademark for a class of 64-bit processor chips (IA64) designed by Intel corporation. The new name for Merced is Itanium.

Metarouter

The Metarouter is identical to the router, extends the interconnect fabric, and is used for the interconnection of routers.

midplane board

A PCBA that is mounted vertically in a frame; it has connectors on both sides into which other PCBAs are inserted. A midplane board generally has minimal logic; the main function of a midplane board is to interconnect multiple PCBAs.

MIPS

1. An acronym for million of instructions per second. 2. MIPS Technologies, Inc. is the name of a former SGI subsidiary that develops processor ASICs. These processor ASICS are referred to as MIPS processors.

module

An independent assembly of electronic components with some distinct function.

motherboard

A printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) on which other boards or cards can be mounted.

mounting bracket

A bracket that attaches the brick to the rack.

mounting shelf

An L-shaped bracket that is installed in a rack to support installation of a subassembly.

network

A network is a communication channel that enables many different devices to be connected. A network is slower than a channel; it enables devices to be added or removed without affecting the operation of the network.

node

An addressable device that is attached to a network; can have multiple processors. A C-brick is referred to as a node.

NUMAlink 3

A communication channel between C-bricks. The bandwidth is 1.6 GB/s one direction (half duplex) and 3.2 GB/s both directions (full duplex).

partition

A software-defined group of processors that work collectively.

P-brick

The rackmount enclosure that provides a crosstalk to a PCI interface. It supports 12 PCI cards on 6 PCI buses. The enclosure is 4 U high and mounts in a standard 19–inch rack.

PCI
( peripheral component interconnect)

An industry standard for connecting peripherals to a processor.

PIMM
(processor integrated memory module)

A printed circuit assembly that contains two processors and memory. The C-brick can be configured with either one or two PIMMs.

POD
( power-on diagnostic)

Diagnostics that run automatically at power-up of a system.

port

A set of input/output registers on a device. The term port refers to one side of a channel. Example: Connect one end of the Xtown2 cable to port 1 of the C-brick.

power bay

A standard 3-U-high, 19-inch rackmount enclosure that contains six removable AC-to-DC power supplies.

power board

A PCBA that regulates DC power.

processor

A single ASIC that contains a control unit, arithmetic and logic unit, and cache.

rack

A frame assembly in which 19-inch components are mounted. Also referred to as cabinet, chassis.

• short rack

A 17-U-high rack. Only SGI™ 3200 series systems use the short rack.

• tall rack

A 39-U- high rack. The SGI Origin 3400 and SGI Origin 3800 series systems use the tall rack.

rack front

The side of a rack that a customer views. Note: The door on the front of the rack includes the SGI logo.

rackmount

Describes components that are mounted in a rack system.

rack rear

The side of a rack that is accessed when configuring a system. The door on the rear of the rack is plain.

R-brick

A 19-inch rackmount enclosure that functions as either a router or MetaRouter depending on its physical locations and cabling within the system. When an R-brick functions as a router, it routes information between C-bricks. When the R-brick functions as a MetaRouter, it routes information between R-bricks. The R-brick is a 2U enclosure.

router

A device that determines the most efficient connection of receive and send ports.

service shelf

A portable shelf that is used to insert and remove bricks within a rack.

service shelf lift

A device used in conjunction with a service shelf that allows the brick to be raised or lowered to the desired level for easier insertion or removal.

SGI Origin 3200

An entry-level system that is contained within a single cabinet and has a maximum of 8 processors.

SGI Origin 3400

A class of computer systems that has a maximum of 1 processor rack and 32 processors. Additional racks with I/O and disks can be configured in an SGI Origin 3400 system.

SGI Origin 3800

A class of computer systems that scales from 16 processors to 512 processors. Additional I/O and disk racks are configured in an SGI Origin 3800 system

sled

See wrapper

U

Unit; one U is equivalent to 1.75 inches of configurable vertical space in a rack.

USB
( Universal Serial Bus)

An external peripheral interface standard that enables communication between a computer and external peripherals via cables using biserial transmission. The USB has a peak bandwidth of 12 Mb/s.

VRM
( voltage regulator module)

A printed circuit board assembly that provides a regulated DC voltage from a 48-Vdc power source.

wrapped drive

The hard drive that is sheathed within and fastened to its wrapper.

wrapper

The mechanical device to which a hard drive is fastened. The wrapper slides into a system chassis to facilitate the proper electrical and mechanical connections between the disk drive and the backplane. Also referred to as a sled.

X-brick

A 4-U high rackmount enclosure that supports 4 half-height XIO cards.

XIO

An SGI proprietary I/O channel, rated at 800 MB/s full duplex.

Xtown2

A differential I/O channel that uses the crosstalk channel protocol. Xtown2 is used to transfer data between the C-brick node and an I/O brick. The bandwidth is 1.2 GB/s one direction (half duplex) and 2.4 GB/s both directions (full duplex). Xtown2 is pronounced Crosstown two.