The M-Machine operating system

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-118).by Yevgeny Gurevich.M.Eng

The M-Machine Multicomputer

The M-Machine is an experimental multicomputer being developed to test architectural concepts motivated by the constraints of modern semiconductor technology and the demands of programming systems. The M- Machine computing nodes are connected with a 3-D mesh network; each node is a multithreaded processor incorporating 12 function units, on-chip cache, and local memory. The multiple function units are used to exploit both instruction-level and thread-level parallelism. A user accessible message passing system yields fast communication and synchronization between nodes. Rapid access to remote memory is provided transparently to the user with a combination of hardware and software mechanisms. This paper presents the architecture of the M-Machine and describes how its mechanisms maximize both single thread performance and overall system throughput

The M-Machine Operating System

This document details the design and implementation of an operating system written specifically for the M-Machine, a multicomputer currently being designed at MIT. The operating system is designed to be lightweight and flexible, able to support a UNIXlike operating system layer interface to higher-level code, while at the same time exposing machine primitives to user programs in a safe and efficient manner. The operating system's central features are its support for fast and efficient thread creation and built-in memory-coherence to present the view of global virtual memory to userlevel programs as well as higher-level protected subsystems. Four core components are presented - the physical and virtual memory managers, the thread manager, and the memory-coherence manager. Thesis Supervisor: William J. Dally Title: Associate Professor Acknowledgments My participation in the M-Machine project has involved the most exciting and challenging work that I have so far undertaken. I would lik..

An Assembler and Linker System for the M-Machine Software Project

This document details the design and implementation of an assembler and linker, and the specifications of their input and output languages. The assembler and linker are system tools for the M-Machine - a multi-node parallel computer being developed at the MIT AI Lab's Concurrent VLSI Architecture Group. The assembler is a derivative of the Multiflow Assembler - a system tool written for computers of similar design to the M-Machine. The assembler/linker system and included specification of the M-Machine assembly-language and M-Machine object file format, provide a solid software base for building other system tools and user programs targeted for the M-Machine. Thesis Supervisor: William J. Dally Title: Associate Professor Acknowledgments I have a great many people to thank. First, to the many teachers and instructors who have made learning exciting for me: Mrs. Crich, Mrs. Stintson, Mrs. Budnick, Mrs. Romero, Mrs. Most, Mr. Mossa, Mrs. Kronen, Mr. Weinberg, Mr. Pullano, Mr. Orenstein..