Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!argosy!workman
From: argosy!workman@decwrl.dec.com (Will Workman)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Re: IPSC Communications
Message-ID: <7143@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 20 Nov 89 21:54:04 GMT
Sender: fpst@hubcap.clemson.edu
Lines: 14
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu

The MasPar MP-1 implements a true grid communications scheme
based on the NASA funded "Blitzen" eight way nearest neighor
plus pipelined extensions for regular communication patterns
plus a totally independent global router using custom VLSI
based on a hierarchical three stage cross bar switch.  
Peformance of nearest neighbors is 45 times faster than the
CM-2 when passing 32 bit values, and 2.5 times faster on 
global messages of both constant offset and random patterns.
The CM-2 really suffers a performance penalty by not having
a physical grid interconnect system on applications like
image and signal processing which are heavily dependent on
fast nearest neighbor and reduction techniques.

Will Workman, Dir of Fed Mkt, MasPar Computer