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Rapid Prototypes Goes With Gateway Grid to Simulate High-Speed Electronics for Its Customers Powered by United Devices Grid MP On Demand(TM) Service, Rapid Prototypes Saves Money by 'Renting' Compute Time on 7,000-Node Gateway Grid POWAY, Calif. and AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Rapid Prototypes, Inc., a turnkey electronic product design services company, is analyzing the design of backplanes for next-generation optical switching equipment -- and saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process -- thanks to its use of the grid-computing service from Gateway, Inc. and United Devices. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020930/LAM050LOGO ) Rapid Prototypes is using Gateway Processing on Demand(SM) (GPOD) grid service, backed by United Device's Grid MP Alliance(TM) platform, to develop some of the world's fastest commercial field programmable gateway array (FPGA) applications. FPGAs are integrated circuits (ICs) that can be programmed in the field after they've been manufactured. They allow engineers to design specialized ICs that can later be produced hard-wired in large quantities for distribution to computer manufacturers and end users. In this case, Rapid Prototypes is analyzing backplane systems for next generation Internet switching equipment. "GPOD allows us to simulate very high-speed electronics, without investing in expensive new hardware," said Brian Von Herzen, Ph.D., president of Rapid Prototypes. "Because the performance is faster with the grid, we are able to produce even higher quality results for our clients while passing on the cost savings this speed of production allows." Conceived as a technique to process information normally handled by supercomputers, grid computing links thousands of PCs to collectively share processing power. Gateway's grid service launched December 2002, joining nearly 7,000 computers in Gateway retail stores across the United States. GPOD ranks among the top 10 largest supercomputers in the world by processing power, producing more than 11 TFLOPS (trillion floating point operations per second) at peak capacity, with most nodes averaging 2.0 GHz or better. Rapid Prototypes conserves costs by renting just the amount of compute time the company needs. In essence, Rapid achieves the computation power its applications require without purchasing a large hardware infrastructure. Gateway provides the hardware backbone for the GPOD service, while United Device's Grid MP Alliance platform provides the virtual operating system for the grid. "The beauty of this solution is that Rapid Prototypes can quickly design integrated circuits without investing upfront capital building their own technology infrastructure," said Scott Weinbrandt, senior vice president of Gateway's Enterprise Systems Division. "Companies pay only for the processing power they need to solve their complex computational problems." "This announcement demonstrates yet another application and industry that can exploit grid computing to achieve tangible and significant business savings," said Paul Kirchoff, vice president of marketing at United Devices. "Electronic design automation is a perfect example of such a compute-intensive application area. This is real utility computing in action." The Gateway Processing on Demand(SM) service is competitively priced based on processor hours used and does not require any long-term or minimum-usage commitments. For more information, go to http://gateway.com/work/services/pod.shtml or http://www.ud.com/alliance . About United Devices United Devices is the market leader in secure grid solutions. The company's Grid MP platform is used to aggregate compute resources on a network to create an enterprise grid capable of running a wide range of high-performance computing applications in life sciences, geosciences, manufacturing, financial services, chemical engineering and other industries. The company's solutions are available in both enterprise and on-demand deployments. United Devices also operates the world's largest Grid for grand-scale research that consists of more than 2.5 million devices in over 220 countries. For more information on secure grid solutions, visit the United Devices Web site http://www.ud.com/ . To volunteer your idle compute power, visit http://www.grid.org/ . About Gateway Since its founding in 1985, Gateway (NYSE:GTW) has been a technology and direct-marketing pioneer, using its call centers, web site and retail network to build direct customer relationships. As a branded integrator of personalized technology solutions, Gateway offers consumers, businesses and schools a wide range of thin TVs, digital cameras, connected DVD players, enterprise systems and other products, which work together seamlessly with its award-winning line of PCs. Gateway is America's second most admired computer company, according to Fortune magazine(1), and its products and services received nearly 130 awards and honors last year. Visit http://www.gateway.com/ for more information. About Rapid Prototypes Rapid Prototypes provides high-performance design solutions for electronic products, including telecommunications, real-time signal analysis, and commercial electronic product development. Often these high-performance products involve the use of programmable logic devices, including FPGAs. Since its founding in 1993, Rapid Prototypes ( http://www.fpga.com/ ) has been a technology leader in high-performance system design, with product designs shipping in the fields oftelecommunications, electronic test equipment, consumer electronics and high-definition digital video equipment. Rapid Prototypes pushes the limits of speed and density achievable in today's integrated circuits, offering reduced time to market throughthe use of programmable logic devices. Visit http://www.fpga.com/ for more information. (1) Source: Fortune magazine, March 3, 2003 issue http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020930/LAM050LOGO http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: Gateway, Inc.; United Devices CONTACT: Ted Ladd of Gateway, Inc., +1-858-848-2515, ; or Vanessa McMillan of United Devices, mobile, +1-512-731-7005, Web site: http://gateway.com/work/services/pod.shtml Web site: http://www.ud.com/alliance Web site: http://www.ud.com/ Web site: http://www.grid.org/ Web site: http://www.fpga.com/ Web site: http://www.gateway.com/

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