POWER3 family is developed for UNIX workstations, servers and supercomputers. The POWER3 is built specifically for the demanding graphic, analysis and simulation programs used by aerospace, automobile and drug manufacturers. POWER3-II is a re-implementation of POWER3 in the copper 0.2-micron technology process. The technology strategy of the POWER3 design was to produce a highly sophisticated processor core and memory subsystem in an advanced, but well-established technology. POWER3-II design is the next step, planned to result in an increase of frequency by up to 50% by tuning the design and moving into IBM's cutting-edge copper technology.The new RS/6000 SP POWER3-II node continues IBM's leadership in high-performance computing. It provides the highest level of floating-point performance for numeric-intensive and technical computing applications and exceptional capacity to meet growth needs. Designed for performance, scalability, availability, manageability, and flexibility in handling both commercial and technical workloads, the SP is made up of building blocks called nodes. An SP can consist of just one or two nodes all the way up to hundreds of nodes. The system's performance scales almost linearly with its size.