The Video-Ram Multiprocessor Architecture

R.D. Hersch, F. Maddaleno, C. Nicks, M. Bürki,

Proceedings Euromicro 88, Zürich, (Winter, Schumny, Eds.), Elsevier Science Publ., 1988, 503-510

Loosely coupled multiprocessor systems communicate by message passing. Traditional implementations of message passing architectures are based on communication controllers accessing local memory through DMA channels. This paper describes a completely new communication mechanism based on the transfer of messages through dual-port memories. The proposed architecture takes advantages of the dual-port nature of dynamic video-ram ICs in order to ensure efficient and deadlock-free transfer of messages between communicating processes.

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