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Network interface for a data driven network of workstations (D2NOW)

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High Performance Computing (ISHPC 1999)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1615))

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Abstract

This paper presents the network interface for the Data Driven Network Of Workstations (D2NOW), a multithreaded architecture that uses the decoupled data driven model of execution. D2NOW is built using commodity workstations. The support for the data driven synchronization of threads, is provided by the Thread Synchronization Unit (TSU). The TSU is attached in the COAST (Cache On A STick) L2 Cache slot of Pentium workstations and thus it has an implicit interface, using snooping, to the Pentium microprocessor. Workstations are connected via a Telegraphos interconnection network. The D2NOW supports fine grain threads and thus is coupled to a fine grain network, the Telegraphos, which is a high throughput ATM-like network. Telegraphos uses short packets and guarantees no packet-drop, which is a must for fine grain data-driven computation. The Network Interface Unit (NIU) is incorporated on the TSU board. The NIU is implemented using two FPGAs and it has very low hardware overhead. Remote writes are carried out in less than a microsecond.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus, P.O. Box 537, 1678, Nicosia, CYPRUS

    Costas Kyriacou & Paraskevas Evripidou

Authors
  1. Costas Kyriacou
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  2. Paraskevas Evripidou
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Editor information

Constantine Polychronopoulos Kazuki Joe Akira Fukuda Shinji Tomita

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kyriacou, C., Evripidou, P. (1999). Network interface for a data driven network of workstations (D2NOW). In: Polychronopoulos, C., Fukuda, K.J.A., Tomita, S. (eds) High Performance Computing. ISHPC 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1615. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0094927

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0094927

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65969-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48821-7

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