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From: ohbuchi@unc.cs.unc.edu (Ryutarou Ohbuchi)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Sort Co-Processors
Message-ID: <1577@unc.cs.unc.edu>
Date: Sat, 10-Oct-87 22:03:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.1577
Posted: Sat Oct 10 22:03:36 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Oct-87 19:23:01 EDT
References: <112@sdeggo.UUCP>
Reply-To: ohbuchi@unc.UUCP (Ryutarou Ohbuchi)
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 28
Keywords: sort co-processor, database machine
Summary: commercial examples (sort of)

Many poeple knows about the IBM 3090 VF, a vector processor add-on
to the 370 architecture mainframe. It is a coprocessor. Before 3090VF,
some Japanese mainframe manufacuturer started adding various coprocessors
to their mainframes. In late 1970 (?), Hitachi added 'Integreted vector
processor', a coprocessor to perform vector math, as an extension to
IBM 370 architecture machine. It shares instruction pipeline with 
the main processor (souped-up 370), and add vector operation to it.
(It was a memory-to-memory type architecture, unlike Cray-1 nor 3090VF.)
NEC did the same thing to their machine. Now, last spring, Hitachi came 
up with 'Integrated Database Processor (IDP)'. (Actually, Mitubishi Elec.
have been adding strange coprocessors to their machines for many years,
including 'database acceralator'. But, since I am not knowledgable to 
these, I do not mention more.) IDP is a vector processor for sorting and
searching. It supports operations like merge, search, gather/scatter, 
etc. It is designed to support (mainly) relational database. It seems to
work on attribute-wise, rather than tuple by tuple operation. IDP 
make sorting, searching, etc. faster. It is a commercial product, added 
to their fastest mainframe M680 series. (Rumor is that they Hitachi up 
with another coprocessor, for Prolog execution, for their super-mini.(?) 
It is called something like "IPP (Integrated Prolog Processor)". I am 
not sure if it is out on the market or not.) 


<Standard disclaimor : The opinion stated here (if any) is my own, ...>


Ryutarou Ohbuchi     "Climb now, work later."  "Life's a rock." 
ohbuchi@unc  on csnet