Seismic Signal Processing via the ILLIAC IV Computer

This paper discusses the ILLIAC IV computer and its application to seismic signal-processing problems. ILLIAC IV, now being fabricated by the Burroughs Corporation, will be operational at the University of Illinois\´ Computer Science Department in 1970. ILLIAC IV is an array of 256 coupled high-speed digital computers; as such, it has the capacity to execute algorithms 256 times faster than present-day computers. Achievement of large speedup factors, however, is dependent upon "structuring" an algorithm into groups of (nominally, 256) identical computations. As an aid to the programmer, the Tranquil language is being designed with certain common statements, such as matrix operations, prestructured to provide for the parallel execution of code on many pieces of data. These, as well as other aspects of the ILLIAC IV system and the Tranquil language, are described in the first part of this paper. The second part of the paper discusses the structuring of common signal-processing algorithms, such as beam forming, convolution, and fast Fourier transform for ILLIAC IV parallel computation. It is shown that, in a great variety of situations, the full speedup factor, 256, can be obtained.