Abstract
In this paper we introduce a generalized class of m - level hierarchical multiprocessor systems. This system is equivalent to the well known crossbar system when there is no hierarchy (m = 1), and to the cluster-based system introduced in [15] when the number of levels equals two (m= 2). However, a number of levels greater than two may be needed in systems that have large number of processors and memory modules, since the goal is to reduce the network complexity without significantly reducing the performance. The performance of the m-level hierarchical multiprocessor system is analyzed in terms of the system bandwidth (BW) for both hierarchically nonuniform reference (HNR) and uniform reference (UR) models. The results show that for higher rate of local requests (requests to memory modules within the same cluster) the m-level system performs fairly close to the crossbar system and outperforms a typical multiple-bus system (with the number of buses equal to half the number of processors). Finally the bandwidth of the m - level system is evaluated for different number of levels and the results are compared with those of a crossbar system (m = 1).
| Original language | English |
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| Pages (from-to) | 129-138 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Publication status | Published - 1992 |
| Externally published | Yes |