The Leopard workstation project

Abstract

I n t r o d u c t i o n .An emerging trend in the use of computer systems is the general migration to workstations. It is clear from examination of current and projected uses of workstations that many applications require more processing power than can be readily achieved with one processor. Such applications include computer-aided engineering and design, graphics generation, and software systems development. The use of multiprocessor architectures is a cost-effective way to solve this problem.The Leopard Workstation Project at the University of Adelaide is investigating a multiprocessor architecture for high performance workstation computers. This architecture makes use of newly available processor components and interconnection technology, and combines them in a way which yields high performance, whilst keeping overhead cost low. The Project is also working on software systems which will take advantage of the architecture, including a concurrent operating system using the Persistent Information Space Architecture (PISA) model, and a concurrent programming environment called Multiview.This paper describes the architecture of the Leopard Workstation, and gives a brief outline of previous developmental work. The work in progress on prototype implementations is then outlined, and an overview is given of of the software projects which take advantage of this architecture. 40