The dataflow model of computation differs from the traditional control-flow
model of computation in that it does not utilize a program counter to sequence
instructions in a program. Instead, the execution of instructions is based solely on the
availability of their operands. Thus, an instruction is executed in a dataflow computer
when all of its operands are available. This asynchronous nature of the dataflow model of
computation allows the exploitation of fine-grain parallelism inherent in programs.
Although the dataflow model of computation exploits parallelism, the problem of
optimally allocating a program to processors belongs to the class of NP-complete
problems. Therefore, one of the major issues facing designers of dataflow
multiprocessors is the proper allocation of programs to processors.
The problem of program allocation lies in maximizing parallelism while
minimizing interprocessor communication costs. The culmination of research in the area
of program allocation has produced the proposed method called the Balanced Layered
Allocation Scheme that utilizes heuristic rules to strike a balance between computation
time and communication costs in dataflow multiprocessors. Specifically, the proposed
allocation scheme utilizes Critical Path and Longest Directed Path heuristics when
allocating instructions to processors. Simulation studies indicate that the proposed
scheme is effective in reducing the overall execution time of a program by considering
the effects of communication costs on computation times. / Graduation date: 1993
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/36758 |
| Date | 18 March 1993 |
| Creators | Freytag, Vincent R. |
| Contributors | Lee, Ben |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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