Implementation of the prodigy parallel AI machine and performance evaluation of communication
Noboru Tanabe, Sadao Nakamura, Takashi Suzuoka, Shigeru Oyanagi · Systems and Computers in Japan · 1992
Abstract At present, the binary n‐cube is considered to be interesting as an interconnection network for the highly parallel computers. Most of those networks, however, use the serial communication channel, which prevents the realization of satisfactory communication performance. From such a viewpoint, it is desired to construct an interconnection network with higher speed, higher versatility, and the easy implementation. The authors have already proposed the base‐m n‐cube as the interconnection network for the parallel AI machine Prodigy. This paper shows that the base‐m n‐cube is better than the binary n‐cube in versatility and easy implementation. Furthermore, the authors developed Prodigy which utilizes the forementioned excellent property to connect 512 processors by the 8‐bit width full duplex base‐8 3‐cube with a handshake. Two kinds of gate arrays are used in the implementation. It is shown as a result that the interconnection network can be constructed with the highest speed in the presently known cube‐type highly parallel computers. It is verified by an actual measurement that the transfer performance is deteriorated only slightly by the collision in the random communication.