NEC Cenju-3: a microprocessor-based parallel computer
Nobuhiko Koike · 2002
Presents the design considerations, machine architecture, and parallel programming environment for the parallel machine Cenju-3, the first massively parallel processor product of NEC. Cenju-3 utilizes fast commodity RISC microprocessors (VR4400) in a distributed shared-memory arrangement and can be configured with up to 256 processing elements, connected through a multistage interconnection network. It results a compact and scalable parallel machine, with operating speeds ranging from 256 MFLOPS to a maximum of 12.8 GFLOPS. A hardware support for the interprocessor communication realizes efficient message/data transmissions among processors. Also, a programming environment (PCASE) has being developed, in order to fully utilize the Cenju-3. PCASE translates a sequential user program into its efficient parallel form with a minimum of user intervention. Preliminary results and future directions are also described.>