ANGLETON, TX – Contract manufacturer Benchmark Electronics Inc. said, through an alliance with Silicon Graphics Inc., it helped create the computer system for which NASA achieved the ranking of third fastest supercomputer in the world.

Benchmark worked with Silicon Graphics to manufacture Pleiades, which SGI deployed at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA. The supercomputer is expected to support the development of the space agency's next-generation space fleet, along with projects related to all other NASA mission directorates.

NASA's Pleiades system is a 51,200-core SGI Altix ICE 8200EX system, and is said to be capable of generating a theoretical peak of 609 trillion operations per sec.

Benchmark contributed product introduction services, PCB assembly, system integration and functional test to the program.