Scripted HTML version of Foils prepared 11 November 1996

Foil 10 Comments on Special Purpose Devices

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 254.8
One example is an Associative memory - SIMD or MIMD or content addressable memories
This is an an example of a special purpose "signal" processing machine which can in fact be built from "conventional" SIMD or "MIMD" architectures
This type of machine is not so popular as most applications are not dominated by computations for which good special purpose devices can be designed
If only 10% of a problem is say "track-finding" or some special purpose processing, then who cares if you reduce that 10% by a factor of 100
  • You have only sped up the system by a factor 1.1 not by 100!

© Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse University, npac@npac.syr.edu

If you have any comments about this server, send e-mail to webmaster@npac.syr.edu.

Page produced by wwwfoil on Fri Aug 15 1997