The PASM project: a study of reconfigurable parallel computing
Howard Jay Siegel, Tracy D. Braun, Hank G. Dietz, Mark B. Kulaczewski, Muthucumaru Maheswaran, Pierre H. Pero, Janet M. Siegel, John John E. So, Min Tan, M.D. Theys, Lee Wang · 2002
PASM is a concept for a parallel processing system that allows experimentation with different architectural design alternatives. PASM is dynamically reconfigurable along three dimensions: partitionability into independent or communicating submachines, variable interprocessor connections, and mixed-mode SIMD/MIMD parallelism. With mixed-mode parallelism, a program can switch between SIMD (synchronous) and MIMD (asynchronous) parallelism at instruction-level granularity, allowing the use of both modes in a single machine. The PASM concept is presented, showing the ways in which reconfiguration can be accomplished. Trade-offs among SIMD/MIMD, and mixed-mode parallelism are explored. The small-scale PASM prototype with 16 processing elements is described. The ELP mixed-mode programming language used on the prototype is discussed. An example of a prototype-based study that demonstrates the potential of mixed-mode parallelism is given.