In January 1998 Compaq Computer Corporation (the
world's largest PC maker in 2000) announced the acquisition of Digital Equipment
Corporation. Compaq¹s strategy was to migrate to a more profitable
market using Digital's established services and sophisticated high-end hardware
expertise.
In 1971 Digital Equipment Corporation opened its
first manufacturing facility in Europe. Galway was chosen as the location
and Digital opened on the site presently occupied by Nortel (Northern Telecom)
in the Mervue Industrial Estate. It was a Hardware Assembly and Distribution
facility. The first shipment that was assembled at the plant in Galway was
a PDP-11/20 computer system. In the early years Digital recruited significant
numbers of personnel from 2nd level schools and had comprehensive in-house
training programmes in place. This emphasis on training was subsequently
to play a part in the impact that ex-Digital personnel had on other engineering
based companies in Ireland and particularly in the western region. The business
continued to expand and plans were advanced for a new Hardware manufacturing
site in Ballybrit and a Software assembly and distribution centre in the
Mervue Industrial Estate. Employee numbers increased to 500 by 1973, 1,000
by 1977 and 1,100 by 1981 and remained close to this level until 1993. In
1993 the phasing out of the Digital Hardware manufacturing operation in
Galway was announced. However, Digital's European Software Centre was unaffected.
The European Software Centre (ESC) is located
in Ballybrit Business Park in Galway. The ESC is a complex organisation
and integrates several aspects of Compaq's Software business. Its activities
include software research and development, software supply and publishing,
product and service marketing, customised software services, multi-lingual
tele-marketing, and a technical support centre.
The ESC also hosts Compaq's Corporate
High Performance Technical Computing Group (HPTC), which is responsible
for designing Supercomputer Software that has played an important role
in such areas as the Human Genome Research Programme. They are also responsible
for building the world's largest supercomputer for the U.S Department
of State.
Digital was set up in 1957, and by 1960 the PDP-1,
the world's first small interactive mini-computer was delivered. For the
next 12 years Digital made inroads in the development of computer technology
by releasing advanced versions of the PDP until the most popular of these,
the PDP 11 was released in 1972. The PDP 11 /45 provided extended memory
and hardware floating point operations. The new machine was 10 inches
tall, half the size of the original mock-up.
In October 1977, the first member of the VAX computer family, the VAX
11/780 was introduced. The VAX represented the virtual address extensions
of the PDP 11 system's 16 bit architecture to a 32 bit architecture. By
October 1989 the VAX 9000 mainframe was introduced. It incorporated numerous
technological advances, including high-density ECL macrocells, multichip
module packaging, and heavily macropipelined architecture. The VAX 9000
was Digital's last system not based on microprocessor technology.
In February 1992, Digital marked a new milestone with the announcement
of ALPHA, its program for 21st century computing and a new, open, 64 bit
RISC architecture. The first Alpha chip was the 21064, which provides
record setting 200 MHz performance. In June 1992, the VAX 7000, Digital's
most powerful VAX system, was introduced. It was field-upgradeable to
the Alpha 64 bit Processor. The Alpha's popularity went from strength
to strength and by 1994 the OSF/1 version 3.0 shipped with symmetric multiprocessing
support and the first wave of cluster capability. The Alpha 21164 processor
provided peak processing power of more than one billion instructions per
second. The chip was the industry's first to operate at 300 MHz. In 1995
when Digital introduced the Alpha server 8400, supporting up to twelve
21164 processors and 14 gigabytes of memory, the 8400 created breakthroughs
in large database performance. In 1998 the powerful combination of Digital
and Compaq enabled Compaq to compete as a main player in the Supercomputer
arena.
At Compaq¹s European Software Centre in Galway the High Performance
Technical Computing Group plays a key role and is responsible for the
design of the Alpha Server SC series of supercomputers. This system is
built from commodity off-the-shelf components connected together with
an ultra-low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnect. The first release,
introduced in July 2000, enables customers to connect up to 128 AlphaServer
ES40 nodes (each containing four 667MHz Alpha processors) into a single
system. This delivers a total compute power of almost 0.7 TeraFlops. These
systems are targeted at the high-end of the computing market, enabling
scientists to solve large-scale problems in such areas as genetics, weather
forecasting and crash simulation.
AlphaServer SC systems have been installed at many leading
US scientific labs as well as at the Commissarie Energie d'Atomique in
France. Engineers from the Galway team have spent significant time onsite
at each of these labs. The HPTC group in Galway has also worked very closely
with Celera Genomics, who have acknowledged the crucial role played by
the AlphaServer systems in the race to sequence the Human Genome. The
US National Science Foundation in 2000 granted a $45m award to Compaq
and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Centre to build a 6 TeraFlop (6 trillion
calculations per second) system based on the AlphaServer SC design. This
system will comprise 2,728 Alpha processors and will be delivered in 2001.
It will be the world's largest non-military supercomputer, and will be
used by researchers studying subjects such as biophysics, astrophysics,
materials science and global climate change.
Compaq's engineering team in Galway will continue to
enhance the capabilities of the AlphaServer SC series. The US Department
of Energy, as part of its Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI)
program, announced in August 2000 that it has awarded Compaq the contract
to build what will be the worlds largest ever supercomputer, delivering
30 TeraFlops of processing power in 2002 .
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The Galway Technology Centre was established in the
Mervue Industrial Estate in 1994 by the Galway Task Force, which was set
up following the downsizing by Digital. The centre was expanded in the following
years and by 2000 had capacity for new technology companies employing 180
people. By that stage 15 companies had moved on to their own premises.
Ex Digital personnel have played a significant
role in other engineering based companies either as senior managers or
company founders. Of particular importance has been the number of company
start-ups by personnel who left Digital at the time of the downsizing
in 1993, some of which have been very successful.
Founded in 1993. Software company. 30 Employees. Purchased in 2000 by
PMC Sierra.
Founded in 1995. Software company. 28 Employees.
Founded in 1994. Software company. 25 Employees.
Founded in 1994. Remanufacturing of computer systems. 60 Employees. Operates
in Ireland and Holland.
Founded in 1994. Supplier to electronics and healthcare industry. 25 Employees.
Founded in 1994. Delivers outsourcing solutions for OEMs. 5,000 Employees
worldwide; 1000 in Ireland. Operations in 6 countries.
In addition to the above companies and other
companies formed by ex Digital personnel others have subsequently become
senior managers in a number of multinational firms in the region.
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