Tera Computer Company Delivers MTA Multiprocessor Computer to SDSC

Published 04/27/1998

SEATTLE -- April 27, 1998 --Tera Computer Company (Nasdaq: TERA), the Seattle-based supercomputer company, announced today that the San Diego Supercomputer Center has accepted delivery of a two-processor Multithreaded Architecture (MTA) system. Tera will recognize the revenues from this delivery - the company's first revenues from system sales - in the current quarter.

"We have been pleased to have early access to the one-processor MTA system since December, and have achieved some encouraging results," said Wayne Pfeiffer, deputy director at SDSC and principal investigator for the MTA evaluation projects. "We look forward to working with larger MTA systems, and the opportunity to verify performance on real-world applications."

"Our Multithreaded Architecture is a radical departure from that of conventional supercomputers," said Burton Smith, Tera's chairman, co-founder and chief architect of the MTA. "It overcomes the scalability and programmability hurdles faced by other approaches to high-performance parallel computing."

"This important milestone begins a new chapter for Tera as a revenue generating manufacturer of the highest performing computers," said Jim Rottsolk, Tera's president, chief executive officer and co-founder. "Our challenge now is to deliver larger systems on a consistent basis. We look forward to working with SDSC in expanding our system in San Diego and with other potential customers who are monitoring the SDSC evaluation."

Tera anticipates that it will upgrade the San Diego system to larger configurations in stages, as it receives acceptable production circuit boards and other components that can then be integrated into commercially acceptable systems.

Delivery and evaluation of the Tera MTA system results from awards to SDSC from the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The machine will be used for a wide variety of applications including molecular modeling, aircraft design, battle field simulation and other defense programs, visualization and database management.

Tera believes its Multithreaded Architecture system represents a breakthrough in supercomputer technology because of its unique ability to provide high performance, broad applicability and ease of programming in a single system. The MTA uses a unique architecture whereby each processor can support up to 128 threads of execution, allowing for higher processor use than traditional architectures. The MTA system is scalable, which means that it provides increases in application performance proportional to the number of processors with no change in the programming model.

Tera Computer Company designs, builds and sells high-performance general-purpose parallel computer systems. For more information about Tera and its MTA systems, contact the company at 2815 Eastlake Avenue E., Seattle, WA 98102. Phone: (206) 490-2000. Fax: (206) 325-2433. E-mail: info@tera.com, or http://www.tera.com.

SDSC is sponsored by the National Science Foundation through the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and by other federal agencies, the State and University of California and private organizations. For additional information about SDSC, see http://www.sdsc.edu/ and http://www.npaci.edu/.

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, Tera's plans to upgrade its MTA multiprocessor system at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. There are certain factors that could cause Tera's execution plans to differ materially from those anticipated by the statements made above. Among such factors are risks associated with integration of numerous modules into commercially configured systems, necessary modifications to hardware components, software and the integrated systems, timely availability of commercially acceptable components from third party suppliers and availability of adequate financial resources. For a discussion of such risks, and other risks that could affect Tera's future performance, please see "Risk Factors" in Tera's most recent SEC Annual Report on Form 10-K.