Traffic-Specific Interconnection Networks for Multicomputers

Special-purpose networks of processors and intelligent switching devices can be programmed to solve problems with inherent parallelism. The target algorithm is coded into a number of asynchronously executing parallel tasks, and assigned to specific processors. For well-known algorithms, information about the data communicated between these tasks (traffic) can be characterized and used by a heuristic algorithm to produce a specialized interconnection network of switching devices at a lower cost and increased performance over the use of a general purpose structure. A program was developed which uses intertask communications to automatically generate interconnection structures of switch chips (SC´s). Simulation results were used to compare cost/performance measures for the program-generated networks with some well-known structures, using both statistically generated traffic patterns and the simulation of real applications.