SOFTWARE PACKAGE FOR MESSAGE-PASSING

MESSAGE-PASSING ARCHITECTURES (SUCH AS THE FPST SERIES, THE NCUBE 10, THE INTEL IPSC, AND THINKING MACHINES CONNECTION MACHINE) ARE ONE OF THE TWO MAJOR APPROACHES TO BUILDING PARALLEL ARCHITECTURES. THESE ARCHITECTURES HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO INCORPORATE LARGE NUMBERS (GREATER THAN 100) OF PROCESSORS, A POTENTIAL THAT THE OTHER MAJOR APPROACH (SHARED MEMORY ARCHITECTURES) DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE. BECAUSE THEY CAN SCALE UP SO WELL, MESSAGE-PASSING ARCHITECTURES MIGHT WELL OUTPERFORM SHARED GLOBAL RESOURCE MACHINES IN THE FUTURE. BECAUSE MESSAGE-PASSING MACHINES HOLD SUCH PROMISE, IT IS CRITICAL THAT FUNDAMENTAL SCIENTIFIC TOOLS BE DEVELOPED FOR THEM. SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING ASSOCIATES, INC. PROPOSES TO TAKE A STATE-OF-THE-ART SOFTWARE TOOL THAT SOLVES THE COMPUTE-INTENSIVE KERNELS OF MOST LARGE-SCALE COMPUTATIONS FOR SEQUENTIAL PROCESSING ARCHITECTURES AND MODIFY IT FOR MESSAGE-PASSING MULTIPROCESSING ENVIRONMENTS. THE TOOL IS PCGPAKTM, THE PRECONDITIONED CONJUGATE GRADIENT PACKAGE OF SUBROUTINES FOR THE ITERATIVE SOLUTION OF LARGE, SPARSE, NONSYMMETRIC SYSTEMS OF LINEAR EQUATIONS, WHICH ARISE REPEATEDLY IN A VERY WIDE RANGE OF APPLICATION AREAS, PARTICULARLY THOSE AREAS CURRENTLY MAKING THE GREATEST DEMANDS ON LARGE-SCALE COMPUTING RESOURCES. THE PARALLEL IMPLEMENTATION OF PCGPAKTM WILL PERMIT ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS TO SOLVE THESE DIFFICULT NUMERICAL PROBLEMS RAPIDLY AND EFFICIENTLY, WITHOUT SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE OF ALGORITHMIC OR PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES. THUS, THEY CAN FULLY USE THE POWER OF MESSAGE-PASSING ARCHITECTURES.