The Utilization of Parallel Processors in a Data Analysis Environment

The problem of reduction and analysis of experimental data is ideally suited to the utilization of a parallel processing environment. In contrast to an array processor, where the operations are paralleled, the structure of event-mode data, as independent information packets, permits the analysis of each data packet to be carried out by a processor operating asynchronously but in parallel with other processing units. In the MIDAS project a multi-processor array (MPA) consisting of 8 high-level CPU's (with floating point hardware) for calculation, 2 pipelined processors for handling data I/O, and a specialized processor to perform high-speed Boolean operations, is available to each user during analysis. In addition, there are mid-range CPU's to control and monitor each MPA and specialized CPU's to control large mass storage devices.