HIGHER SPEED TRANSPUTER COMMUNICATION USING SHARED MEMORY

This paper describes how the communication options in a transputer network have been enhanced by adding a new medium to the manufacturer-provided transputer links - shared memory for clusters of transputers within the network. Access to this shared memory, by each of the four transputers in a cluster, is controlled by specially developed arbitration logic. Some design problems are discussed and the implementation of message passing via the shared memory is described. The occam requirements for synchronized message passing between transputers are fulfilled with simple hardware and software support. The advantages of this approach and the performance of the new facilities are discussed.