CSC/ECE 506 Spring 2012/preface

This preface intends to browse through the wiki pages done over the Spring 11 and Spring 12 CSC/ECE 506 courses and, taking the Solihin's FUNDAMENTALS OF PARALLEL COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE<ref>FUNDAMENTALS OF PARALLEL COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE by Solihin</ref> as a base and perusing the book Table of Content <ref>FUNDAMENTALS OF PARALLEL COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE TOC</ref> travel though the study topics and summing them up, picking up the best approaches.

Chapter 1: Perspectives <ref>Spring_2012/1a_hv</ref><ref>Spring_2012/1a_mw</ref> <ref>Spring_2012/1a_ry</ref> <ref>Spring_2012/1b_ap</ref> <ref>Spring_2012/1b_as </ref> <ref> Spring_2012/1b_ps</ref> <ref>Spring_2012/1c_12</ref> <ref> Spring_2012/1c_cl </ref> <ref>Spring_2012/1c_dm </ref>

This chapter includes pages on three different subjects: supercomputer comparisons, Moore's Law and MISD architectures.On the first topic, supercomputers evolution, out of the 3 pages both [5] and [6] are very similar, probably because they come from the same source ([6] actually specify what their additions were to the Spring 11 original), and are both remarkable. They start analyzing the evolution of the supercomputer (Eniac, Cray, Japanese computers, IBM...) to pass to their different designs and architectures ([5] adds here a section of the reasons for the decay of the vector-based machines). Chapter 7 on [6] is an extensive excursion over the operative systems used in these platforms, ways of interconnecting them ([5] also introduces Infiniband as an alternative to Ethernet)and includes some comparisons between brands and different architectures. Next more current fast supercomputers implementations are presented, together with programming models and tools, like Fortran, C, PVM or OpenMP. Finally Consumption and cooling techniques are presented, followed by a discussion on trends and the future of these machines. The second set of wikis try to answer the Does Moore's Law still hold? question.

References

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