New Parallel Prefix Algorithm for Multicomputers

A new computation-efficient parallel prefix algorithm for message-passing multicomputers is presented. The algorithm uses only half-duplex communications. It provides the flexibility of choosing parameter values for either fewer computation time steps or fewer communication time steps to achieve the minimal running time based on the ratio of the time required by a communication step to the time required by a computation step. Thus, under certain conditions, the new algorithm can run faster than previous ones for the same multicomputer model.