CPE 315
Professor Stearns
Flynn's Multiprocessor Taxonomy
- SISD Computer
One CPU - the kind we have studied all quarter
- MIMD Single Bus Computer
Multiple CPUs share the same bus and have equal access to memory and I/O devices.
A problem is restricted bus bandwidth and length.
A more common term for a MIMD machine - Symmetric Multiprocessor (SMP)
Here is an [incomplete and out-of-date] list of
Commercial SMPs
CPE 459 covers SMPs and parallel programming.
- MIMD Networked Computer
Multiple CPUs connect via a network; each CPU has its own
memory. There are a wide variety of network topologies used
to make the connections.
CPE 464/465 cover networks.
- SIMD Computer (commonly called a vector processor)
Copies of a single program run on multiple CPUs; each CPU operates
on different data sets.
Last updated on 12/4/00