On the performance and cost of some PRAM models on CMP hardware

The Parallel Random Access Machine is a very strong model of parallel computing that has resisted cost-effective implementation attempts for decades. Recently, the development of VLSI technology has provided means for indirect on-chip implementation, but there are different variants of the PRAM model that provide different performance, area and power figures and it is not known how their implementations compare to each others. In this paper we measure the performance and estimate the cost of practical implementations of four PRAM models including EREW, Limited Arbitrary CRCW, Full Arbitrary CRCW, Full Arbitrary Multioperation CRCW on our Eclipse chip multiprocessor framework. Interestingly, the most powerful model shows the lowest relative cost and highest performance/area and performance/power figures. (15 refs.