Emerging VLSI/ULSI technologies have created new opportunities in designing computer architectures capable of hiding the latencies and synchronization overheads associated with von Neumann-style multiprocessing. Pure Dataflow architectures have been suggested as solutions, but they do not adequately address the issues of local memory latencies and fine-grain synchronization costs. In this thesis, we propose a novel hybrid dataflow/von Neumann architecture, called the Super-Actor Machine, to address the problems facing von Neumann and pure dataflow machines. This architecture uses a novel high-speed memory organization known as a register-cache to tolerate local memory latencies and decrease local memory bandwidth requirements. The register-cache is unique in that it appears as a register file to the execution unit, while from the perspective of main memory, its contents are tagged as in conventional caches. Fine-grain synchronization costs are alleviated by the hybrid execution model and a loosely-coupled scheduling mechanism. / A major goal of this dissertation is to characterize the performance of the Super-Actor Machine and compare it with other architectures for a class of programs typical of scientific computations. The thesis includes a review on the precursor called the McGill Dataflow Architecture, description of a Super-Actor Execution Model, a design for a Super-Actor Machine, description of the register-cache mechanism, compilation techniques for the Super-Actor Machine and results from a detailed simulator. Results show that the Super-Actor Machine can tolerate local memory latencies and fine-grain synchronization overheads--the execution unit can sustain 99% throughput--if a program has adequate exposed parallelism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.39346 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Hum, Herbert Hing-Jing |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (School of Computer Science.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001287869, proquestno: NN74897, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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