The semantics of memory—a large state which can only be read or changed a small piece at a time—has remained virtually untouched since von Neumann, and its effects—latency and bandwidth—have proved to be the major stumbling block for high performance computing. This paper suggests a new model termed "microservers" that exploits "Processing-In-Memory" VLSI technology, and that can reduce memory traffic, increase inherent opportunities for concurrency, and support a variety of highly concurrent programming paradigms. Application of this model is then discussed in the framework of several on-going programs, particularly the HTMT petaflops project.
['Jay B. Brockman', 'Peter M. Kogge', 'Thomas L. Sterling', 'Vincent W. Freeh', 'Shannon K. Kuntz']
Microservers: a new memory semantics for massively parallel computing