A low-complexity parallel system for gracious scalable performance. Case study for near PetaFLOPS computing

This paper presents a "point design" for an MIMD distributed shared-memory parallel computer capable of achieving gracious 100 TeraFLOPS performance with technology that will definitely become feasible/viable in less than a decade. Its scalability guarantees a lifetime extending well into the next century. The design takes advantage of free-space optical technologies, with simple guided-wave concepts, to produce a 1-D building block (BB) that implements efficiently a large, fully-connected system of processors. Designing fully-connected, large systems of electronic processors could be an immediate impact of optics on massively-parallel processing. A 2-D structure is proposed for the complete system, where the aforementioned 1-D BB is extended into two dimensions. This architecture behaves like a 2-D generalized hypercube, which is characterized by outstanding performance and extremely high wiring complexity that prohibits its electronic implementation. With readily available technology, a mesh of clear plastic bars in our design facilitate bit-parallel transmissions that utilize wavelength-division multiplexing and follow dedicated optical paths. Each processor is mounted on a card. Each card contains eight processors interconnected locally via an electronic crossbar. Taking advantage of higher-speed optical technologies all eight processors share the same interface to the optical medium. Encouraging, preliminary results prove that our conservative design could have a tremendous, positive impact on massively-parallel computing in the near future.