Communication Performance of Advanced Transputer Networks for Universal Message-Passing

Abstract

The new generation of transputer components provides advanced communication functionality and performance supporting large systems of parallel processors and virtually full connectivity at high bandwidth and with short delays. We present the results of performance investigations carried out in the context of the ESPRIT PUMA project which predict and compare the communications performance of various network topologies, sizes and routing schemes for non-local communication patterns in order to assess the suitability of transputer networks for general-purpose computing and their scalability of performance with the network size. The results have been largely obtained through simulation, in combination with an extended analytical model for the assessment of very large networks. As a conclusion we found the Clos-type multistage networks together with an adaptive routing scheme to be the most universal solution for scalable high performance under non-local communication load.