Packed exponential connections-a hierarchy of 2-D meshes

Describes packed exponential connections (PEC), a novel interconnection network that is being used to implement a fine grain configurable hardware massively parallel computer. PEC augments a rectangular 2-D mesh by adding four longer connections to each node. These longer connections form meshes between processors that are separated by 2^k hops on the near-neighbor mesh. The distribution of these meshes provides regular and predictable long-distance connectivity between regions of the near-neighbor mesh. PEC is efficient in use of wire area, and is able to implement both mesh and non-mesh data-transfer patterns