SKY COMPUTERS SHIPS INDUSTRY’S FIRST HIGH-PERFORMANCE EMBEDDED SERVERS OPTIMIZED FOR MILITARY AND INDUSTRIAL INSPECTION APPLICATIONS

New Class of SMART Systems Based on Industry Standards, Open-Source Software Shipping to Military, Defense, SDR Contractors and Integrators

Chelmsford, MA, May 21, 2004—SKY Computers, a subsidiary of Analogic Corporation (NASDAQ: ALOG), has begun shipping the industry’s first high-performance embedded servers to customers with demanding applications. SKY’s SMART Systems are designed to meet the needs of Navtronics, Avionics, Vetronics, Industrial Inspection and other environments that demand real-time, sensor-based, high-availability solutions.

Building on its expertise in these industries, SKY developed a new class of high-performance embedded servers (HPES) that leverage industry standards and open-source software resulting in systems that provide the ease of use of COTS in a highly customizable family of products. With InfiniBandTM as its fabric interconnect, the SMART Systems Architecture scales all the way from a single blade server with between six and 24 processing elements to a whole rack of these servers with hundreds of processors and even to very large multi-rack system implementations. The high-performance architecture readily adapts to a broad range of configurations from a simple daisy chain of blade servers to a complex full-mesh topology or any of the variations in between.

“With the continued development, and now deployment, of SMARTpacTM Systems, SKY clearly understands that the critical factor for embedded servers in demanding applications is flexibility, as well as support for the traditional military system requirements of reliability, supportability, maintainability and affordability,” said Ash Law, president of SensorCom. “SKY is delivering servers that match the structure of many signal and image processing applications for data acquisition and processing. The SMARTpac System Architecture offers system designers something that has long been missing in the embedded signal processing environment - the ability to knit I/O and processing into one cohesive system running in a single operating environment. This product family approach allows SKY and SensorCom to tailor solutions to meet the unique and diverse needs of our customers."

SMARTpac Systems readily adapt to many defense-related applications including Software Defined Radio (SDR), as well as shallow-water mine detection in Navtronics, foliage-penetrating radars in Avionics and targeting radars in Vetronics.

One of the largest defense contractors recently selected SKY’s SMARTpac 600 for a U.S. Navy tactical program that supports a weather analysis and forecasting system targeted for future deployment on surface ships. This system was based on a previous program, which supported a ground-based system installed at the National Weather Radar Testbed in Norman, Oklahoma (co-funded by the U.S. Navy). Another global defense contractor will use SMARTpac to support targeting radars focused on Navtronics environments. Additionally, SKY has worked with a major OEM in industrial inspection to solve yield management problems.

“SKY Computers has a quarter-century history of solving problems in mission-critical real-time applications by working closely with customers,” said Don Barry, president of SKY Computers. “SKY’s signal processing experts are skilled at mapping algorithmic requirements onto high-performance multiprocessing architectures, as well as tailoring configurations to suit demanding applications. Available for delivery, SKY’s breakthrough high-performance embedded servers offer carefully-tuned algorithms running on a scalable, flexible, standards-based architecture to provide the ultimate in system performance.”

The SMART Systems Architecture consists of a development environment that provides quick application implementation, optimization, and a runtime environment that incorporates system health monitoring technologies to enable a high level of application availability. This system-wide architecture is designed to deliver high compute performance, scalability and interconnect bandwidth. Built on open-source software and standard technologies such as Linux, InfiniBand, MPI, VSIPL and CORBA, SMART Systems reduce development time and accelerate time to deployment. The SMARTpac 600 embedded server is designed for front-end data collection, aggregation and distribution. Data can be distributed to the compute server blades within the SMARTpac 600 chassis or to tightly integrated, high-density SMARTpac 1200 compute servers.

Pricing and Availability
The SMARTpac 600 Data Acquisition Server pricing starts at $21,250. The SMARTpac 1200 Compute Server pricing starts at $22,700. Volume discount allowances are available. Product availability is 90 days ARO.

About SKY Computers
SKY Computers, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Analogic Corporation, is the leading supplier of standards-based, embedded high-performance computer systems. SKY’s broad range of commercial-off-the-shelf products meets the requirements for high-performance embedded computing applications. Standards and open-source software are combined with advanced technologies to provide solutions for demanding defense electronics, industrial inspection, medical imaging, and security applications. For additional information, please visit www.skycomputers.com.