HTML version of Scripted Foils prepared 11 November 1996

Foil 6 Some Major Hardware Architectures - SIMD

From CPS615-Lecture on Computer Architectures and Networks Delivered Lectures of CPS615 Basic Simulation Track for Computational Science -- 12 September 96. by Geoffrey C. Fox *
Secs 256.3
1 SIMD -- Single Instruction Multiple Data -- can have logically distributed or shared memory
  • Examples are CM-1,2 from Thinking Machines
  • and AMT DAP and Maspar which are currently focussed entirely on accelerating parts of database indexing
  • This architecture is of decreasing interest as has reduced functionality without significant cost advantage compared to MIMD machines
  • Cost of synchronization in MIMD machines is not high!
  • Main interest of SIMD is flexible bit arithmetic as processors "small" but as transistor densities get higher this also becomes less interesting as full function 64 bit CPU's only use a small fraction of silicon of modern computer
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