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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Multitasking runtime systems for the Cedar Multiprocessor

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5546060

The programming of a MIMD machine is more complex than for SISD and SIMD machines. The multiple computational resources of the machine must be made available to the programming language compiler and to the programmer so that multitasking programs may be written. This thesis will explore the additional complexity of programming a MIMD machine, the Cedar Multiprocessor specifically, and the multitasking runtime system necessary to provide multitasking resources to the user. First, the problem will be well defined: the Cedar machine, its operating system, the programming language, and multitasking concepts will be described. Second, a solution to the problem, called macrotasking, will be proposed. This solution provides multitasking facilities to the programmer at a very coarse level with many visible machine dependencies. Third, an alternate solution, called microtasking, will be proposed. This solution provides multitasking facilities of a much finer grain. This solution does not depend so rigidly on the specific architecture of the machine. Finally, the two solutions will be compared for effectiveness. 12 refs., 16 figs.

Research Organization:
Illinois Univ., Urbana (USA). Center for Supercomputing Research and Development
DOE Contract Number:
FG02-85ER25001
OSTI ID:
5546060
Report Number(s):
DOE/ER/25001-87; UILU-ENG-86-8009; ON: DE88003528
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English