A Fault-Tolerant Multi-Processor without Bottlenecks

The Heidelberg Multi-Processor-System "POLYP" is described. It will be used for online-data reduction, trigger processing, image processing asf. The system consists of typically up to 300 processor-modules and several global memory modules. They are interconnected by a multi-common-bus for parallel data transfers and a multiple synchronization bus for processor/task-scheduling. Hardware and software is designed to be free of bottle-necks: the number of modules and the bus-capacity are not limited. An increased system size does not lead to increased memory- or bus-interferences. The system is designed to be fault-tolerant: hardware and sofware are organized totally dezentralized; most temporary and permanent memory- and bus-transfer-faults are corrected by hardware. Defective modules or busses are disabled by software; the system continues its operation with almost the same speed.