Basic HTML version of Foils prepared 23 August 1998

Foil 31 Shared-Memory Machines -- Notes

From CPS615-Introduction-Course,Driving Technology and HPCC Current Status and Futures CPS615 Basic Simulation Track for Computational Science -- Fall Semester 98. by Geoffrey C. Fox, (Some Culler, Koelbel material)


1 Interconnection network shown here is actually for the BBN Butterfly, but C-90 is in the same spirit.
2 These machines share data by direct access.
  • Potentially conflicting accesses must be protected by synchronization.
  • Simultaneous access to the same memory bank will cause contention, degrading performance.
  • Some access patterns will collide in the network (or bus), causing contention.
  • Many machines have caches at the processors.
  • All these features make it profitable to have each processor concentrate on one area of memory that others access infrequently.

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