Mercury Computer Systems Delivers Unmatched Levels of Radar Subsystem Performance

CHELMSFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY, www.mc.com), a trusted provider of commercially developed ISR subsystems, announced greatly improved radar subsystem performance through two new innovations: a general purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) product based on the NVIDIA^® “Fermi” architecture, and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) standards-based real time sensor interface module.

“Last year, Mercury announced the first fielded GPGPU-based ISR subsystem, which is flying today”

These products enable unprecedented levels of Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) optimization for radar applications through the highest TeraFLOP-per-slot compute performance metric and the highest I/O channel density per slot available in the defense industry today. This extraordinary level of performance is required to meet the stringent demands of modern radar, including the ability to search and track smaller, more numerous and faster targets in the harshest environments.

“Last year, Mercury announced the first fielded GPGPU-based ISR subsystem, which is flying today,” said Didier Thibaud, senior vice president and general manager of Mercury Computer Systems’ Advanced Computing Solutions business unit. “We are leveraging the high-performance, rugged and upgradeable aspects of this GPGPU innovation into our next-generation radar subsystems and extending it with massive I/O. Together with our industry-leading rugged OpenVPX^™ Intel^® modules, these new capabilities enable our SWaP-optimized radar subsystems to ‘do more with less’ so we can help our customers meet the challenges of the modern battlefield.”

Mercury’s new subsystem enhancements are based on powerful building-block components in 6U OpenVPX standard form factors. Like all of Mercury’s open architecture building blocks, these modules can be configured with other components (such as Intel rugged processor cards and switch modules) into advanced Application Ready Subsystems^™ (ARS^™) as part of larger radar systems. Each ARS is a customized design with unique, application-specific capabilities. The individual modules can also be adapted to specific program needs by Mercury’s Services and Systems Integration (SSI) group.

Powerful Building-Block Modules

Mercury’s radar Application Ready Subsystems are powered by the Ensemble^™ 6000 Series 6U OpenVPX Intel-based modules and enhanced by the new GSC6200 GPU Processing Module and the Ensemble IO Mezzanine Series IOM-200 XMC and IOR-280 RTM building-block modules. Using two NVIDIA^® GeForce^® GTX 460M GPGPUs based on their latest Fermi GPU architecture, the GSC6200 delivers a combined 384 processing cores, 3GB of high-bandwidth GDDR5 SGRAM and more than 1 TFLOP of peak theoretical performance per 6U OpenVPX slot. It supports CUDA^™ (Compute Unified Device Architecture), OpenCL and Mercury’s MultiCore Plus^™ MathPack C/C++ software development environments.

Crucial algorithms for radar signal processing such as adaptive beam-forming, pulse compression, constant false alarm rate (CFAR) and cross correlation are greatly accelerated by the native, highly parallel architecture of the GPU. The high gigaflop-per-Watt performance delivered by the GSC6200 helps reduce board count, which in turn reduces system size and weight. Further, Mercury’s innovative board design houses the GPGPUs in an easily upgradeable MXM^® form factor, enabling customers to quickly validate and deploy the most current GPGPU technology available.

The IOM-200 XMC features four 10Gbps Ethernet I/O channels on a single XMC card and either a high-performance Altera^® Stratix^® IV 230 or 360 FPGA, which can be used for algorithm partitioning and acceleration. When combined with Mercury’s Ensemble^™ LDS6520 Intel-based processor module, up to eight channels of 10 Gigabit Ethernet can be supported per 6U OpenVPX slot, which ensures that all processing cycles are being utilized.

In addition to advanced technical capabilities, Mercury’s scalable signal processing solutions deliver program-level advantages to radar customers for multi-mode and multi-mission applications. Integrated, tested and validated by Mercury, these subsystems help customers reduce both technical and business risks by supporting compressed development cycles and faster deployment of new programs.

Learn More

For more information about next-generation building blocks for radar applications, register for a free webcast, visit www.mc.com/GSC6200, www.mc.com/IOM200 or contact Mercury at 866.627.6951 or info@mc.com.

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. – Where Challenges Drive Innovation^®

Mercury Computer Systems (www.mc.com, NASDAQ: MRCY) is a best-of-breed provider of open, commercially developed, application-ready, multi-INT subsystems for the ISR market. With over 25 years experience in embedded computing, superior domain expertise in radar, EW, EO/IR, C4I and sonar applications, and more than 300 successful program deployments including Aegis, Global Hawk and Predator, Mercury’s Services and Systems Integration (SSI) team leads the industry in partnering with customers to design and integrate system-level solutions that minimize program risk, maximize application portability and accelerate customers’ time to market.

Mercury is based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and serves customers worldwide through a broad network of direct sales offices, subsidiaries and distributors.

Forward-Looking Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including those relating to the products and services provided for the products and services described above. You can identify these statements by the use of the words “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “plans,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “continue,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend,” “likely,” “probable, ”and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, including unforeseen weakness in the Company’s markets, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, continued funding of defense programs, the timing of such funding, changes in the U.S. Government’s interpretation of federal procurement rules and regulations, market acceptance of the Company's products, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, inability to fully realize the expected benefits from acquisitions and divestitures or delays in realizing such benefits, challenges in integrating acquired businesses and achieving anticipated synergies, changes to export regulations, increases in tax rates, changes to generally accepted accounting principles, difficulties in retaining key employees and customers, unanticipated costs under fixed-price service and system integration engagements, and various other factors beyond our control. These risks and uncertainties also include such additional risk factors as are discussed in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2010. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made.

Challenges Drive Innovation and Echotek are registered trademarks and Application Ready Subsystem, ARS and Ensemble are trademarks of Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. OpenVPX is a trademark of VITA. Other product and company names mentioned may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective holders.