Programming the Connection Machine

Abstract

The Connection Machine architecture provides a massive number of simple processors that execute synchronously. A language called SC is presented which makes it easy to write parallel programs for the Connection Machine. SC is an enhancement of C; it adds a few data types and primitives to develop parallel programs. The primitives introduced by SC are derived from the UNITY, a parallel-programming theory and notation. The SC primitives support the data-parallel programming style, where a processor is assumed to be assigned to each data element. However, SC programs do not adhere to a synchronous execution model and allow MIMD (multiple-instruction, multiple-data-stream) parallelism to be expressed. A preliminary description of the SC primitives and their implementation is provided.<>