Editing Cray-3 (section)

{{Short description|Supercomputer by Cray research}}
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[[File:Seymore Cray poses with Cray 3.jpg|thumb|right| Seymour Cray stands behind a Cray-3 processor tank. The CPU occupies only the top of the tank, the rest contains memory and power supplies.]]

The '''Cray-3''' was a [[Vector processor|vector]] [[supercomputer]], [[Seymour Cray]]'s designated successor to the [[Cray-2]]. The system was one of the first major applications of [[gallium arsenide]] (GaAs) semiconductors in computing, using hundreds of custom built [[integrated circuit|ICs]] packed into a {{convert|1|cuft}} [[central processing unit|CPU]]. The design goal was performance around 16 [[FLOPS|GFLOPS]], about 12 times that of the Cray-2.

Work started on the Cray-3 in 1988 at [[Cray|Cray Research]]'s (CRI) 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, [[Seymour Cray#Cray Computer Corporation|Cray Computer Corporation]] (CCC).

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, Colorado|Boulder]]. The company went bankrupt in May 1995, and the machine was officially decommissioned.

With the delivery of the first Cray-3, [[Seymour Cray]] immediately moved on to the similar-but-improved [[Cray-4]] design, but the company went bankrupt before it was completely tested.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.techagreements.com/agreement-preview.aspx?num=121632 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120919123656/http://www.techagreements.com/agreement-preview.aspx?num=121632 |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 19, 2012 |title=CCC 1994 Annual Report }}</ref> The Cray-3 was Cray's last completed design; with CCC's bankruptcy, he formed SRC Computers to concentrate on parallel designs, but died in a car accident in 1996 before this work was delivered.<ref name=Lazou>{{cite web |url=http://www.hoise.com/primeur/96/pr-96-oct/CL-PR-10-96-3.html |title=Obituary – Seymour Cray, Father of supercomputing |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080507080148/http://www.hoise.com/primeur/96/pr-96-oct/CL-PR-10-96-3.html |archive-date=2008-05-07 }}</ref>