Parallel Computer Architecture

The most exciting development in parallel computer architecture is the convergence of traditionally disparate approaches on a common machine structure. This book explains the forces behind this convergence of shared-memory, message-passing, data parallel, and data-driven computing architectures. It then examines the design issues that are critical to all parallel architecture across the full range of modern design, covering data access, communication performance, coordination of cooperative work, and correct implementation of useful semantics. It not only describes the hardware and software techniques for addressing each of these issues but also explores how these techniques interact in the same system. Examining architecture from an application-driven perspective, it provides comprehensive discussions of parallel programming for high performance and of workload-driven evaluation, based on understanding hardware-software interactions. It: synthesizes a decade of research and development for practicing engineers, graduate students, and researchers in parallel computer architecture, system software, and applications development; presents in-depth application case studies from computer graphics, computational science and engineering, and data mining to demonstrate sound quantitative evaluation of design trade-offs; describes the process of programming for performance, including both the architecture-independent and architecture-dependent aspects, with examples and case-studies; and, illustrates bus-based and network-based parallel systems with case studies of more than a dozen important commercial designs.