A Clustered Multiprocessor System

With the recent remarkable development of VLSI technology, the study and the experimental development of multiprocessors composed of a large number of processors have actively been performed. A serious problem in such systems is the contention (conflict) in communication. A clustered system is proposed as a means to ameliorate the problem, where processors are grouped into several units. This paper derives a theoretical expression for the processing efficiency of the clustered multiprocessor system. An experimental system was constructed, which is composed of 32 processors, being grouped into 4 clusters, each of which is composed of 8 processors. The design of the software and the result of implementation are described. As a practical example, the summation of a series and the solution of a system of linear equations are considered. The processing efficiencies of the clustered and nonclustered systems were measured and compared. It is shown as a result that the clustered system can improve the system efficiency considerably by adding a small amount of hardware.