The super-actor machine : a hybrid dataflowvon Neumann architecture

Emerging VLSI/ULSI technologies have created new opportunities in designing computer architectures capable of hiding the latencies and synchronization overheads associated with von Neumann-style multiprocessing. Pure Dataflow architectures have been suggested as solutions, but they do not adequately address the issues of local memory latencies and fine-grain synchronization costs. In this thesis, we propose a novel hybrid dataflow/von Neumann architecture, called the Super-Actor Machine, to address the problems facing von Neumann and pure dataflow machines. This architecture uses a novel high-speed memory organization known as a register-cache to tolerate local memory latencies and decrease local memory bandwidth requirements. The register-cache is unique in that it appears as a register file to the execution unit, while from the perspective of main memory, its contents are tagged as in conventional caches. Fine-grain synchronization costs are alleviated by the hybrid execution model and a loosely-coupled scheduling mechanism.A major goal of this dissertation is to characterize the performance of the Super-Actor Machine and compare it with other architectures for a class of programs typical of scientific computations. The thesis includes a review on the precursor called the McGill Dataflow Architecture, description of a Super-Actor Execution Model, a design for a Super-Actor Machine, description of the register-cache mechanism, compilation techniques for the Super-Actor Machine and results from a detailed simulator. Results show that the Super-Actor Machine can tolerate local memory latencies and fine-grain synchronization overheads--the execution unit can sustain 99% throughput--if a program has adequate exposed parallelism