The Viability of Multimicroprocessor Systems

The advances made in integrated circuit technology to date have been dramatically greater than the uses which have been made of this technology. Initially, the only use of LSI was for the construction of various types of memories. This is an obvious first choice since memories offer both an orderly repetitive pattern, making implementation easy, and a high gate-to-pin ratio, making very large numbers of gates possible on a single chip. The success achieved with memories has caused the processor part of a computer's hardware cost to become increasingly more expensive relative to the memory. As long as the processors are constructed from SSI/MSI units, they will continue to become relatively more expensive as the state of the integrated circuit technology continues to advance. So, a major challenge facing computer designers is to create techniques for utilizing the considerable capability available in LSI technology in the construction of the processing portion of computing systems.