Performance of a bus-based parallel computer with integer-representation processors applied to artificial neural network and parallel AI domains

MY-NEUPOWER is an inexpensive massively parallel computer, which is composed of 512 processor elements densely packaged in a desktop-size cabinet. Communication using a common broadcast-bus and integer-representation circuits are the fundamental architecture of the machine. In this paper, we present effective implementation techniques of backpropagation (BP) and memory-based reasoning (MBR) onto MY-NEUPOWER. Speed and scalability with these techniques are measured, and high performance with cost-effectiveness is shown being compared with those of other computers. Effect of the integer representation is also evaluated and shown not to reduce the learning and reasoning performance.