THE DESIGN OF AN INSTRUCTION STREAM MEMORY SUBSYSTEM

Date
1985-12-01
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Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as the dominant application area to be supported by next-generation computers. The dramatic performance improvements necessary to enable this support can only come about through a complete reorganization of conventional architectures and problem solving techniques. Most present-day systems are organized around a complex processing element coupled to a simple, unstructured memory. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate an alternative memory organization termed the Instruction Stream Memory of ISM. This memory is designed as a system part for a highly replicated, ultra-concurrent next generation AI machine architecture. The intent is to improve performance by distributing into the memory itself many of the functions associated with the accessing and processing of an instruction stream, such as next address calculation, instruction pre-fetch, and branch processing. This frees the processor from these tasks and reduces the severity of the processor-memory bottleneck. A possible design for the ISM, targeted for implementation as a custom CMOS chip, is presented.
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Computer Science
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