On March 2, 2000, Tera Computer announced an agreement to acquire SGI’s Cray supercomputer business and the Cray brand. The deal closed on April 1, 2000, and Tera renamed itself Cray Inc. The announcement also set out Tera’s plan to commercialize its Multithreaded Architecture (MTA) with CMOS processors—a roadmap whose performance and power figures were company claims, not independent test results.
What Tera announced—and when the deal closed
Tera Computer Company announced on March 2, 2000, that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire SGI’s Cray vector-supercomputer business unit. The contemporary announcement described consideration involving common stock, cash, and notes, but did not disclose the terms. Cray Inc.’s later SEC filing says the operating-asset acquisition closed on April 1, 2000; Tera changed its corporate name to Cray Inc. that day. EE Times reported the announcement; the 2003 SEC prospectus records the closing and transaction details.
What the acquisition included
The transaction was broader than a transfer of the Cray name. Cray Inc.’s 2003 prospectus says Tera acquired the Cray T90, SV1 and T3E product lines, other product lines, the Cray X1 development project and its related cost-sharing contract, and the service organization supporting installed systems. The acquired assets also included integration and final-assembly operations, software and expertise, inventory, real property in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and the Cray brand. Tera received approximately 775 employees.
The filing says Tera paid SGI $50.3 million in cash and issued 1,000,000 shares of common stock. Those disclosed terms provide detail absent from the March announcement. The filing described Tera as having approximately 125 employees before the acquisition; EE Times characterized the combined company as having roughly 900 people.
#1 Best Overall
- 640x480 VGA Resolution – 1/6" CMOS sensor with 300k-pixel array for real-time imaging and embedded vision applications.
- Low-Power Operation – 60mW at 15fps (VGA/YUV) with 2.5-3.0V I/O voltage and integrated 1.8V LDO core regulation.
- Auto-Image Optimization – AE (exposure), AGC (gain), AWB (balance), anti-bloom, and black-level calibration for adaptive lighting conditions.
- Programmable Image Parameters – Adjustable color saturation, hue, gamma correction, and edge sharpness via SCCB/I²C interface.
- Multi-Format Output – Raw RGB, RGB565/555/444, YUV 4:2:2, and YCbCr 4:2:2 via 8-bit parallel data port (D0-D7).
Why Tera paired Cray with its MTA architecture
Tera’s stated strategy was to combine its MTA architecture with Cray’s vector systems, software, manufacturing capacity, customer relationships and service organization. The company identified government and national security, university research and commercial applications as markets it served. The stated rationale was an expectation at the time, not proof that the combination delivered every anticipated benefit.
Tera president and CEO Jim Rottsolk said the acquisition would create “a profitable, new company with major market presence, outstanding talent, complementary product lines and a strong infrastructure.” He also said the investment showed that “supercomputers are not a dying industry.” These were company statements accompanying the transaction. IDC Group Vice President-Worldwide Systems & Servers Debra Goldfarb offered a similarly optimistic view, saying Cray Inc. would “reinvigorate the global high-performance sector.” HPCwire reported the contemporary statements.
Rank #2
- Resolution 640x480 VGA
- IO voltage 2.5V to 3.0V (internal LDO power supply to the core 1.8V)
- Power operation 60mW/15fps VGAYUV
- Automatic influence control functions include: automatic exposure control, automatic gain control, automatic white balance, automatic elimination of light streaks, automatic black level calibration, image quality control including color saturation, hue, gamma, sharpness ANTI_BLOOM
- RawRGB, RGB (GRB4:2:2, RGB565/555/444), YUV(4:2:2) and YCbCr(4:2:2) output formats
What Tera said CMOS would change
Tera presented CMOS as a way to make MTA systems easier to manufacture and potentially improve reliability and performance, while reducing parts, power consumption and connections compared with its earlier gallium-arsenide (GaAs) design. The company’s reported comparisons were specific to the designs it described in 2000:
| Comparison reported by Tera in 2000 | CMOS Torrent design | Earlier GaAs design |
|---|---|---|
| Processor implementation | One CMOS Torrent processor replaced 24 GaAs ASICs | 24 ASICs replaced by the Torrent, according to Tera |
| Power | 50 watts for the Torrent chip | 1,000 watts for the GaAs design |
| Board connections | 1,025 connections on the processor board | 14,400 connections on the GaAs board |
EE Times reported that Tera said a Torrent chip could support up to 128 virtual RISC-like processors, or threads. These are attributed company figures, not independently verified comparative measurements. The article also reported that Tera’s CMOS designs were being fabricated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), with a flip-chip package intended to address power, clock distribution and high-speed signaling.
Rank #3
- OV2640 is a 1/4 inch CMOS UXGA (1632 x 1232) image sensor, The sensor is small in size and low in operating voltage, providing the same functions of a single-chip UXGA camera and image processor.
- Through SCCB bus control, it can output 8 / 10-bit image data with various resolutions in the form of whole frame, sub-sampling, scaling and window extraction.
- The UXGA image of this product can reach up to 15 frames per second (SVGA can reach 30 frames and CIF can reach 60 frames).
- Users can fully control the image quality, data format and transmission method.
- 140° Wide angle lens allow you to capture a large area of the scene within a short shooting distance.
The commercialization plan and what was later established
In 2000, Tera planned to begin commercializing CMOS MTA systems in configurations ranging from 16 to 64 processors. That was a forward-looking schedule reported at the time; it does not establish that systems were delivered on that timetable. The later SEC prospectus offers a narrower retrospective milestone: MTA-2’s CMOS reimplementation was essentially complete at the end of 2001. It does not, by itself, establish delivery dates or commercial outcomes for each system in the original plan.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The market outlook was a forecast, not a result
In 2000, IDC forecast that the high-performance computing market would reach $5 billion that year and about $7.5 billion in 2003, as reported by HPCwire. These were historical forecasts, not measured figures for those years or estimates of today’s market. They help explain the optimism surrounding the deal, but should not be read as confirmation that the projected growth occurred.
Quick Recap
Best Value
- OV2640 camera module is made of 1/4 inch OV2640 million high-definition CMOS sensor, with high sensitivity, high flexibility, support JPEG output and other characteristics
- The OV2640 image sensor has 2 million pixels (1632x1232 pixels), its small size, low operating voltage, and provides all the functions of a single UXGA camera and image processor
- It supports many parameter settings such as exposure, white balance, chroma, saturation and contrast, and supports JPEG/RGB565 format output, which can meet the needs of different occasions
- Through the control of SCCB bus, 10-bit sampling data of various resolutions can be output in the form of whole frame, sub-sampling, windowing, etc. Users can fully control image quality, data format and transmission mode
- OV2640 image sensor uses unique sensor technology to improve image quality and obtain clear and stable color images by reducing or eliminating optical or electronic defects such as fixed pattern noise, tail support, floating, etc
Rank #4
- IO voltage 2.5V to 3.0V (internal LDO power supply to the core 1.8V)
- Power operation 60mW/15fps VGAYUV
- Automatic influence control functions include: automatic exposure control, automatic gain control, automatic white balance, automatic elimination of light streaks, automatic black level calibration, image quality control including color saturation, hue, gamma, sharpness ANTI_BLOOM
- RawRGB, RGB (GRB4:2:2, RGB565/555/444), YUV(4:2:2) and YCbCr(4:2:2) output formats
- Resolution 640x480 VGA
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