SPARCLE - AN EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSOR DESIGN FOR LARGE-SCALE MULTIPROCESSORS

Working jointly at MIT, LSI Logic, and Sun Microsystems, designers cre ated the sparcle processing chip by evolving an existing RISC architec ture toward a processor suited for large-scale multiprocessors. This c hip supports three multiprocessor mechanisms: fast context switching, fast, user-level message handling, and fine-grain synchronization. The Sparcle effort demonstrates that RISC architectures coupled with a co mmunications and memory management unit do not require major architect ural changes to support multiprocessing efficiently.