Connection Machine model CM-5 system overview

Abstract

The Connection Machine model CM-5 provides high performance and ease of use for large data-intensive applications. The CM-5 architecture is designed to scale to teraflops performance on terabyte-sized problems. SPARC-based processing nodes, each with four vector pipes, are connected by two communications networks, the Data Network and the Control Network. The system combines the best features of SIMD (single-instruction multiple-data) and MIMD (multiple-instruction multiple-data) designs, integrating them into a single 'universal' parallel architecture. The processor nodes may be divided into independent computational partitions; each partition may be independently timeshared or devoted to batch processing. Programming languages include Fortran (with Fortran 90 array constructs) and C*, a parallel dialect of C. The PRISM programming environment supports source-level debugging, tracing, and profiling through a graphical interface based on X Windows.<>