Performance prediction and calibration for a class of multiprocessors

A model for predicting multiprocessor performance on iterative algorithms is developed. Each iteration consists of some amount of access to global data and some amount of local processing. The iterations may be synchronous or asynchronous, and the processors may or may not incur waiting time, depending on the relationship between the access time and processing time. The effect on performance of the speed of the processor, memory, and the interconnection network is studied. The model also illustrates the significant impact on performance of decomposing an algorithm into parallel processes. The model's predictions are calibrated with experimental measurements.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>