The A-NET working prototype: a parallel object-oriented multicomputer with reconfigurable network

A multicomputer prototype has been co-designed and implemented in conjunction with a programming language, A-NETL, based on a parallel object-oriented computation model. Each node processor consists of a processing element (PE) and a router. The prototype PE has an A-NETL directed high-bevel instruction set. The implementation is supported by firmware and hardware. The router has been designed to be independent of network topology, utilizing virtual-cut-through, adaptive routing. Experimental results show that a round trip for a 35-byte message between adjacent nodes takes 85 machine cycles (MCs), and 6 MCs per hop, adaptive routing attains low latency communication under contention; the adaptation of network topology to a given communication pattern shows better performance than a generic topology, and the application to small problems attains a 10 to 18 times speedup on the 16-node prototype