An efficient task allocation scheme for two-dimensional mesh-connected systems

Efficient allocation of proper size submeshes to incoming tasks in two-dimensional (2D) mesh-connected processors is very important for achieving the desired high performance. It also needs to guarantee the recognition of the free submeshes with minimum overhead. In this paper we present an efficient task allocation scheme for 2D meshes. By employing a new approach for searching the array, our scheme can find the available submesh without the scanning of the entire 2D array unlike earlier designs. As a result, our scheme can significantly reduce the task allocation time. Comprehensive computer simulation reveals that the average allocation time and waiting delay are much smaller than earlier schemes irrespective of the size of meshes. The hardware overhead is comparable to other schemes.