CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
29 June 2004
Product News
UGS Announces Support for New Intel® XeonT Processor-Based Platform
UGS ( http://www.ugs.com/ ) announced support for the new Intel® XeonT processor-based platform designed for workstations. The latest Intel chip offers UGS customers state-of-the-art 32-bit performance today, as well as 64-bit extensions to support increasingly high-end performance requirements in the near future. UGS has successfully tested both its NX 2 and Parasolid V16.0, product development software products, on the new Intel chip.
UGS testing has validated that the new Intel Xeon processor-based platform, which offers significant architecture enhancements, yields improved application performance, greater system bandwidth and the elimination of graphics I/O bottlenecks. In addition, these new processors include Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel® EM64T), Intel's 64-bit extension technology for its 32-bit Intel Xeon processor-based platform. These extensions will enable customers to deploy 64-bit applications that allow much greater memory addressability.
UGS and Intel worked closely together to ensure that NX 2, one of UGS' flagship computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering analysis (CAD/CAM/CAE) applications, and Parasolid V16.0 would support the new Intel Xeon-based workstations as 32-bit applications immediately. In addition, the companies have collaborated to ensure that future releases of both software products would support and take advantage of the 64-bit extensions.
"Many of our CAD customers modeling very large assemblies are reaching the limits of 32-bit addressing," said Chris Brosz, vice president of Technical Operations for UGS. "In order to continue to provide these customers with the same high levels of performance and support they expect, we believe it is important to ensure that our product development solutions take advantage of the 64-bit extensions available in Intel's new processor. The new Intel Xeon processor's ability to run existing 32-bit Windows applications without modification, while offering a true 64-bit computing environment, will benefit customers in their migration to 64-bit computing."
Chuck Grindstaff, UGS executive vice president of PLM Products, highlighted UGS' support for the Intel Xeon processor with Intel EM64T at the Intel Developer Forum in February. Grindstaff demonstrated pre-release versions of NX and Parasolid running on an Intel Xeon processor-based platform with Intel EM64T technology by manipulating a complicated CAD assembly that exceeded the 4GB memory limit of current 32-bit technology.
"UGS and Intel have worked together since 1997 to bring performance, scalability and value to our mutual CAD/CAM/CAE customers," said Richard Dracott, general manager of Enterprise Marketing and Planning for Intel. "Our new Intel Xeon processor-based platform with many innovations represents Intel's ongoing commitment to the continuous evolution of IA-32-based workstations. With the 800 MHz system bus, Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology, PCI Express I/O, DDR2 memory technology and Intel SpeedStep® technology, Intel is demonstrating its understanding and continued support of the workstation needs of the two companies' manufacturing customers. These technologies enable them to continue to develop some of the most innovative, complex, leading edge products in the world."
NX 2 will initially support the new Intel Xeon processor running Microsoft's Windows XP 32-bit operating system (OS). Plans are currently being developed to support Microsoft's Windows XP 64-bit OS after its anticipated release in late 2004.
Parasolid V16.0 has been fully tested on the new Intel Xeon processor in both the 32-bit and 64-bit environments and is being made available immediately to Parasolid application developers. Fully supported Parasolid- based applications running in these environments are expected to begin shipping to end users upon availability of the appropriate Windows XP OS.
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