BLOB Computing

Frédéric Gruau (1) , Yves Lhuillier (1) , Philippe Reitz (2) , Olivier Temam (3)

1 LIRMM/HE - Hors Équipe
2 LIRMM/DOC - Données Objets Composants pour les systèmes complexes
3 ALCHEMY - Architectures, Languages and Compilers to Harness the End of Moore Years

Current processor and multiprocessor architectures are almost all based on the Von Neumann paradigm. Based on this paradigm, one can build a general-purpose computer using very few transis- tors, e.g., 2250 transistors in the first Intel 4004 microprocessor. In other terms, the notion that on-chip space is a scarce resource is at the root of this paradigm which trades on-chip space for program execution time. Today, technology considerably relaxed this space constraint. Still, few research works question this paradigm as the most adequate basis for high-performance computers, even though the paradigm was not initially designed to scale with technology and space. In this article, we propose a different computing model, defining both an architecture and a language, that is intrinsically designed to exploit space; we then investigate the implementation issues of a computer based on this model, and we provide simulation results for small programs and a simplified architecture as a first proof of concept. Through this model, we also want to outline that revisit- ing some of the principles of today’s computing paradigm has the potential of overcoming major limitations of current architectures.

Domaines: Informatique [cs]

Frédéric Gruau, Yves Lhuillier, Philippe Reitz, Olivier Temam. BLOB Computing. Computing Frontiers, Apr 2004, Ischia, Italy. pp.125-139. ⟨lirmm-00108879⟩