Scalable Coherent Interface: links to the future

The uses of the Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI) are examined. SCI was developed to support closely coupled multiprocessors and their caches in a distributed shared-memory environment, but its scalability and the efficient generality of its architecture make it work very well over a wide range of applications. It can replace a local area network for connecting workstations on a campus. It can be a powerful I/O channel for a supercomputer. It can be the processor-cache-memory-I/O connection in a highly parallel computer. It can gather data from enormous particle detectors and distribute them among thousands of processors. It can connect a desktop microprocessor to memory chips a few millimeters away, disk drives a few meters away, and servers a few kilometers away.<
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