A PROPOSAL FOR A NUMERICAL ACCELERATOR PROJECT

This paper proposes a pilot project to study the feasibility of a nume rical accelerator installation at CERN with a long term target (LHC st artup time frame) of real-time performance. The rapid evolution of mic roprocessors based on RISC architectures, the ever increasing system i ntegration level and the associated compiler technology now provides t he opportunity to imagine a numerical accelerator. In the next few yea rs, the increased speed of microprocessors and the computer systems as a whole, as indicated by technology road maps from various manufactur ers should enable the real time simulation of large machines such as t he LHC.