Architecture and applications of the Connection Machine

Abstract

The concept of data-parallel computers is explained, and their architecture of the Connection Machine (CM), which implements this approach, is described. It provides 64 K physical processing elements, millions of virtual processing elements with its virtual processor mechanism, and general-purpose, reconfigurable communications networks. The evolution of the CM architecture is examined, and the software environment, engineering and physical characteristics, and performance of the current embodiment (the CM-2) are discussed. Applications of the CM to molecular dynamics, VLSI design and circuit simulation, and computer vision are described.