A survey of parallel computer architectures

An attempt is made to place recent architectural innovations in the broader context of parallel architecture development by surveying the fundamentals of both newer and more established parallel computer architectures and by placing these architectural alternatives in a coherent framework. The primary emphasis is on architectural constructs rather than specific parallel machines. Three categories of architecture are defined and discussed: synchronous architectures, comprising vector, SIMD (single-instruction-stream, multiple-data-stream) and systolic machines; MIMD (multiple-instruction-stream, multiple-data-stream) with either distributed or shared memory; and MIMD-based paradigms, comprising MIMD/SIMD hybrid, dataflow, reduction, and wavefront types.<>