The Supercomputer Toolkit: A General Framework for Special-purpose Computing

Abstract

The Toolkit is a family of hardware modules (processors, memory, interconnect, and input-output devices) and a collection of software modules (compilers, simulators, scientific libraries, and high-level front ends) from which high-performance special-purpose computers can be easily configured and programmed. The hardware modules are intended to be standard, reusable parts. These are combined by means of a user- reconfigurable, static interconnect technology. T he Toolkit's software support, based on n ovel compilation techniques, produces e xtremely high- performance numerical code from high-level language input, and will eventually automatically configure hardware modules for particular applications.