Cray-2 central unit (foreground) and Fluorinert -cooling "waterfall" (background), on display at the EPFL. The Cray-2 is a supercomputer with four vector processors made by Cray Research starting in 1985. At 1.9 GFLOPS peak performance, it was the fastest machine in the world when it was released, replacing the Cray X-MP in that spot.

The design of this machine used total immersion cooling that dissipated the immense heat generated by the tightly packed circuits. About 30 of these machines were delivered to customer locations all over the world. Looking at the front of the machine the modules in 14 stacks each have a specific purpose.

technology used by the CRAY-2 is a breakthrough in the design of cooling systems for large-scale computers. It places the cooling medium in direct contact with the components to be cooled, thus efficiently reducing and stabilizing the operating temperature and increasing system reliability. The CRAY-2 mainframe operates in a cabinet filled with ...

The Cray-2's unusual cooling scheme immersed dense stacks of circuit boards in a special non-conductive liquid called Fluorinert™, which in turn was cooled in the tank at the right. This machine was used to simulate nuclear fusion.

2023年2月28日 · The Cray-2 CPU and Cooling Tower, introduced in 1985, immersed dense stacks of circuit boards in a non-conductive liquid called Fluorinert™, which was cooled in a tank. Photo: © Computer History Museum/Mark Richards

The key to the fast clock speed in the Cray-2 is the dense packing within the modules, and this is made possible only by the unique cooling technology for the Cray-2. CRAY-2 Module Cooling Technology All of the electronic modules as well as the power supplies are cooled by

The Cray-2's unusual cooling scheme immersed dense stacks of circuit boards in a special non-conductive liquid called Fluorinert™, which in turn was cooled in the tank at the right. This machine was used to simulate nuclear fusion.</p>

An overview of the Cray-2 system, including its capability and performance, is provided. The Cray-2 consists of 4 background processors and a foreground processor for I/O. An extremely large multibank memory is a key feature, as is the cooling technology. The operating system is based on Unix System. V*.

Besides high cooling efficiency, the potential benefits of liquid immersion cooling include the high cooling capacity, temperature uniformity, reliability, and not needing to power internal fans/pumps to assist fluid cooling flows.

2022年11月4日 · The power consumption of the Cray-2 was 150–200 kW. Research conducted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the early 1990s indicated that to a limited extent the perfluorinated polyether used to cool Cray-2 circuits would break down to form the extremely toxic gas perfluoroisobutylene.