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Two fundamental issues in multiprocessing

  • Part II - Parallel Computer Architectures
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Parallel Computing in Science and Engineering (DFVLR-Seminar 1987)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 295))

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Abstract

A general purpose multiprocessor should be scalable, i.e. show higher performance when more hardware resources are added to the machine. Architects of such multiprocessors must address the loss in processor efficiency due to two fundamental issues: long memory latencies and waits due to synchronization events. It is argued that a well designed processor can overcome these losses provided there is sufficient parallelism in the program being executed. The detrimental effect of long latency can be reduced by instruction pipelining, however, the restriction of a single thread of computation in von Neumann processors severely limits their ability to have more than a few instructions in the pipeline. Furthermore, techniques to reduce the memory latency tend to increase the cost of task switching. The cost of synchronization events in von Neumann machines makes decomposing a program into very small tasks counter-productive. Dataflow machines, on the other hand, treat each instruction as a task, and by paying a small synchronization cost for each instruction executed, offer the ultimate flexibility in scheduling instructions to reduce processor idle time.

This report describes research done at the Laboratory for Computer Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Funding for the Laboratory is provided in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under Office of Naval Research contracts N00014-83-K-0125 and N00014-84-K-0099. The second author is employed by the International Business Machines Corporation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Arvind & Robert A. Iannucci

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  1. Arvind
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  2. Robert A. Iannucci
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Rüdiger Dierstein Dieter Müller-Wichards Hans-Martin Wacker

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© 1988 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Arvind, Iannucci, R.A. (1988). Two fundamental issues in multiprocessing. In: Dierstein, R., Müller-Wichards, D., Wacker, HM. (eds) Parallel Computing in Science and Engineering. DFVLR-Seminar 1987. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 295. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-18923-8_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-18923-8_15

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-38848-7

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