Multiprocessing tradeoffs and the wind-tunnel simulation problem

Abstract

The architecture tradeoff issue is discussed, concentrating on an oversimplified version of the multiprocessing aspect. A degree of symmetric multiprocessing is unavoidable; the choice is either complete symmetric multiprocessing or a number of identical pipelines. The processing elements can be geared to do either plane-multiprocessing, or line-multiprocessing. Other important design choices are the number notation, word length, main memory size, cache memory size, and different means to implement data transport.