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From: wailes@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Tom S Wailes)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: 32->64 bit Killer Micros
Summary: What should one consider?
Message-ID: <1991Jun23.012644.12449@en.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 91 01:26:44 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 19

Assume you are designing a massively parallel computer system made of
many commodity microcomputers.  To make this interesting, assume that
partitioning can be made to allow differing classes of users to coexist on
one machine.  For example, several "vi" tasks could be resident on a single
processor, while many (128) processors could be attacking a electron
transport simulation problem.  What word size would be the best for use
and why?

     A massively parallel machine would probably be used for scientific
computations and many would say you must have a machine with 64 bit
capabilties built in.  However, all of the general purpose programming and
low level processing tasks could easily be handled by present 32 bit
micros, and clearly the 32-bit market will have the most competition and
the most competitive price for some years to come.  You must make a design
decision soon.  What papers have studied this?  Who has numbers from
which to base this decision?

                                                  Tom
                                                  wailes@ecn.purdue