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Fujifilm Medical Systems and SGI to Deliver Economical, Volume Exploration Picture Archiving and Communication System


WEBWIRE

SGI Visualization and Visual Area Networking Technology Enables Short Response Time and Tremendous Scalability in Data Handling, Number of Users and Rendering Quality

CHICAGO, Ill. and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., (November 28, 2005)—Today at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual conference in Chicago, Silicon Graphics (OTC: SGID) and Fujifilm Medical Systems USA announced a new picture archiving and communication system (PACS) solution that will revolutionize the world of radiology and change the way all healthcare professionals view and analyze complex datasets. The fruit of a partnership announced at last year’s RSNA, the new Volume Exploration solution will deliver the benefits of the open architecture Silicon Graphics Prism™ visualization system to the diagnostic interpretation process through Fuji’s Synapse® PACS.*

While the first digital, filmless hospital was created just seven years ago, PACS is now an accepted technology, offering radiologists and other clinicians the ability to retrieve, share, and remotely access complex, two-dimensional (2D) scan data. The amount of information that must be processed, however, has grown exponentially, taxing the ability of standard desktop workstations to process and display the data in a timely fashion.

Radiologists today are experiencing “slice overload;” it is simply not possible to efficiently view thousands of single images in a reasonable amount of time. As a result, more clinicians are now looking toward volume reconstructions, rather than a multitude of static scans, as an efficient and optimal use of the entire scanned data set. With volume exploration capabilities, researchers can examine scans much more accurately and faster, discovering anomalies that would simply not be apparent through a multitude of two-dimensional views.

“We’re undergoing a revolution in CT scanning as a digital input modality,” said Robert Cooke, Fuji’s executive director of marketing, network systems. “Volume exploration will make much more accurate diagnoses possible, creating great benefits for science and ultimately the patient.”

Fuji and SGI are creating a system that eliminates the digital bottlenecks of ever expanding data, making rapid, economical volume exploration a reality. To accomplish this, data no longer will be rendered on a radiologist or doctor’s desktop but rather at a centralized 3D graphics server. Using SGI’s shared-memory and single system image architecture integrated with multiple ATI® FireGL™ graphics processor units (GPUs), data processing tasks can be divided between GPUs to minimize rendering time and maximize image quality.

“We are proud of the impact that ATI FireGL workstation graphics accelerators are having today in powering the next generation of medical imaging solutions,” said Dinesh Sharma, director of Workstation products, ATI Technologies. “Together with Fuji and SGI, ATI is pleased to be playing a key role in bringing to the medical community new capabilities that will dramatically improve the diagnostic process for medical professionals and their patients.”

The Silicon Graphics Prism visualization system brings the following benefits to the new Fuji volume exploration PACS solution:

“ Short response time. Radiologists and clinicians can start interacting with the data within seconds because rendering is local to where these large data sets are stored. SGI Visual Area Networking (VAN) technology sends just the reconstructed voxels to the radiologist’s desktop while data still resides on the server. ” Scalability in data handling capability. Large data sets can be loaded in main memory due to the 64-bit architecture. System resources such as CPUs, I/O, memory, storage, and graphics, can be independently expanded as the hospital’s needs grow. “ Using dynamic load balancing, the radiologist is not limited to the texture capacity of a GPU and can utilize the scalability of the Silicon Graphics Prism architecture to load more studies for the best diagnosis. Dynamic load balancing does not limit radiological studies to the capacity of modern day GPUs. ” Scalability in number of users. Multiple users can share the same system due to scalable architecture. “ Scalability in rendering quality. Modern GPUs coupled with scalability allow high-quality rendering algorithms to be deployed. This way a volume can be interactively rendered by a user and ”tumbled“ without the resolution sacrifice all other 3D systems make. This is a key enabling technology so that diagnoses can be made with volumes when there is no a priori knowledge of where the radiologist needs to look for potential disease processes. ” Maintains existing workflow. Unlike proprietary systems from other providers, the Fujifilm and SGI solution brings no changes to the standard diagnostic Synapse workflow. Scans are accessed through the standard Internet Explorer web browser interface, and data is transferred through the IP network. Physicians use their existing monitors and drives; no equipment upgrade or system re-education is necessary. And because the Silicon Graphics Prism system will reside alongside Synapse, the two will integrate seamlessly. Researchers can easily access volume data using the same workflow techniques with which they are already familiar.

SGI Visual Area Networking
The Silicon Graphics Prism system brings Visual Area Networking (VAN) technology to diagnostic scan analysis, making it possible to rapidly render and transmit volume exploration data to virtually any desktop workstation without sending the data across the network.

VAN through SGI® OpenGL Vizserver™ software enables the transfer of rich data between the Silicon Graphics Prism and a thin client. To keep the files small, VAN technology transmits only the pixels of the rendered graphic, rather than the raw data itself. As a result, VAN technology can operate on virtually any type of client, including laptops, workstations and, eventually, even PDAs.

With the Fuji and SGI PACS solution, components will be sourced from a number of manufacturers offering best-of-breed technologies. The Silicon Graphics Prism system runs the rock-solid Linux® OS based on Intel® Itanium® 2 processors and ATI FireGL GPUs.

“The combination of Silicon Graphics Prism visualization system and Fuji’s Synapse PACS solution provides hospitals with a very cost-effective, powerful and flexible centralized system. As technology grows customers will be able to leverage the latest innovations in compute and visualization without changing the entire PACS infrastructure,” said Afshad Mistri, senior manager of Advanced Visualization, SGI.

About Fujifilm Medical Systems USA, Inc.
As one of the Fuji Photo Film family of companies with 70 years of imaging experience and nearly $25 billion in sales, Fujifilm Medical Systems is a leading provider of diagnostic imaging products and network systems to meet the needs of healthcare facilities today and well into the future. Fuji’s Synapse PACS (picture archiving and communications system) provides a seamless solution for managing, storing and distributing images and information throughout the entire healthcare enterprise. Its Web integrated design and hardware independence provide a technological infrastructure and deployment model that can be expanded upon in a myriad of ways to adapt to evolving technologies. Fuji is headquartered in Stamford, CT. More information is available at www.fujimed.com.

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery™ SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc. (OTC: SGID), is a leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI’s vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it’s sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

*Synapse - SGI image visualization requires FDA 510K review and is not yet currently available for sale. The SGI-based volume visualization component of Synapse is anticipated to be released in 2007.

This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding SGI technologies and third-party technologies that are subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such statements. The reader is cautioned not to rely unduly on these forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future or current performance. Such risks and uncertainties include long-term program commitments, the performance of third parties, the sustained performance of current and future products, financing risks, the impact of competitive markets, the ability to integrate and support a complex technology solution involving multiple providers and users, the acceptance of applicable technologies by markets and customers, and other risks detailed from time to time in the company’s most recent SEC reports, including its reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q.

Silicon Graphics, SGI, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks and OpenGL Vizserver, Silicon Graphics Prism and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.



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