parallel computers lecture notes, Lecture notes of Computer Science

Chapter 1: Parallel Computing at a Glance 1

Parallel Computing at a Glance

It is now clear that silicon based processor chips are reaching their physical limits in processing speed,

as they are constrained by the speed of electricity, light, and certain thermodynamic laws. A viable

solution to overcome this limitation is to connect multiple processors working in coordination with each

other to solve grand challenge problems. Hence, high performance computing requires the use of

Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) systems containing thousands of powerful CPUs. A dominant

microkernel designers!) have found that these new operating systems will have to be much smaller than

traditional ones to achieve the efficiency and flexibility needed. The solution appears to be to have a

new kind of OS that is effectively a compromise between having no OS at all and having a large

monolithic OS that does many things that are not needed. At the heart of this approach is a tiny

microkernel approach are Mach and C-DACs PARAS microkernel.

to the PARAM and PARAS advented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-

DAC). It starts with the discussion on need of parallel systems for High Performance Computing and

as we learned to fly, not by constructing machine that flap their wings like birds, but by applying

aerodynamic principles demonstrated by nature; we modeled parallel processing after these biological

species. The feasibility of parallel processing can be demonstrated by neurons in brain. Aggregate

speed with which complex calculations carried out by neurons is tremendously high, even though

individual response of neurons is too slow (in terms of milli seconds).