Building blocks for a new generation of application specific computing systems

The iWarp processor, which integrates both communication and computation functions on a single VLSI component, is described. The iWarp component and subsystems including it are powerful building blocks for constructing a new generation of application-specific computing systems. These special-purpose systems can achieve very high performance, while maintaining a high degree of flexibility to address different needs of an application. In particular, iWarp systems deliver high computation bandwidth (up to 20 GFLOPS for a 1024 cell system), as well as high communication bandwidth (320 Mbytes/s per cell). Programming these systems is assisted by modern tools such as optimizing compilers and parallel program generators