Parallel Computer Architecture

Scalable Multiprocessors

In this chapter, we begin our study of the design of machines that can be scaled in a

practical manner to hundreds or even thousands of processors. Scalability has pro-

found implications at all levels of the design. For starters, it must be physically pos-

sible and technically feasible to construct a large configuration. Adding processors

clearly increases the potential computational capacity of the system, but to realize

this potential, all aspects of the system must scale. In particular, the memory band-

width must scale with the number of processors. A natural solution is to distribute

the memory with the processors ...