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Chapter 21

A Productive Implementation of an Associative Array Processor: STARAN1

Jack A. Rudolph / Kenneth E. Batcher

 

Introduction [Rudolph]

The associative or content-addressed memory has been an attractive concept to computer designers ever since Slade and McMahon [1957] described a "catalog" memory. Associative memories offered relief from the continuing problem presented by the typical coordinate-addressed memory which requires that an "address" be obtained or calculated before data stored at that address may be retrieved. The associative memory could acquire in a single memory access any data from memory without pre-knowledge of its location. Ordered files and sorting operations could be eliminated. Unfortunately, early associative memories were expensive, hence none found their way as the "main frame" memory into any commercial computer design.

The organization of an associative memory (AM) requires that each n-bit physical word of the memory be connected to a dedicated processing element (PE) which performs the compare function between a bit read non-destructively from the word and a corresponding input bit from a query word. The PE's for all words are driven by a central controller, thus a single query bit is simultaneously compared with the corresponding stored bit in every word of the AM. With the ability to simultaneously write back the state of each PE into a specified bit position of each word it became possible to perform bit-serial arithmetic between fields of bits within each physical memory word. An array of associative memory words could then be viewed as an array of simple computers-an associative array processor-with all the simple computers in the array simultaneously executing the same instruction obtained from a common control unit as is done in the more complex ILLIAC-IV design.

An alternative AP design provides a PE at each bit of each physical memory word. This design, though complex in terms of logic and interconnection requirements, permits a simultaneous compare of all bits in a query word with all bits of the memory word rather than the serial-by-bit operation described earlier.

Due to the early high cost of semi-conductor memory and logic elements none of the many associative processor designs described in the literature were attractive enough to warrant development. However, it has now become commercially feasible to construct a computing system embodying "main frame" memory content addressability coupled with array arithmetic capability operating under a more or less conventional stored program control system.

Several proprietary versions of the associative processor (AP) are being developed. The first working engineering model known to the author, built for USAF by Goodyear Aerospace Corporation, was demonstrated during a Tri-Service contract review in June, 1969 at Akron, Ohio [Fulmer and Meilander, 1970]. The same machine, modified to include a larger instruction memory, was loaned by USAF in 1971 to the FAA for conflict detection tests in a live air traffic control terminal environment at Knoxville, Tennessee operating in a multi-computer configuration with a Univac 1230 conventional computer [Rudolph, Fulmer and Meilander, 1971]. The original test objectives were achieved by December, 1971 and additional experiments involving terrain avoidance processing were completed successfully in June, 1971.

The lessons learned in programming and testing the USAF AP model resulted in a new design called STARAN S which was committed to production in 1971. This first commercial AP was publicly introduced in a series of live demonstrations in May, 1972 at the TRANSPO exhibit in Washington, D.C. and in June, 1972 at Boston, Mass.

This paper describes STABAN S and its programming language, provides examples of its applications, and discusses measures of AP cost-effectiveness.

STARAN Description

A configuration diagram of STARAN S is shown in Fig. 1. Studies have shown that initial uses of AP's would be weighted toward real-time applications involving interface with a wide variety of sensors, conventional computers, signal processors, interactive displays, and mass storage devices. To accommodate all such interfaces the STARAN system was divided into a standardized main frame design and a custom interface unit. A variety of I/O options implemented in the custom interface unit includes conventional direct memory access (DMA), buffered I/O (BIO) channels, external function channels (EXF) and a unique interface called parallel I/O (PLO).

A top-cut diagram of the STARAN main frame is shown in Fig. 2. It consists of a conventionally addressed control memory for program storage and data buffering, a control logic unit for sequencing and decoding instructions from control memory and from one to thirty-two modular AP arrays. A typical AP array is shown in Fig. 2.

To accommodate both bit-slice accesses for associative process-

1This chapter is compiled from Rudolph [1972], Proc. FJCC, 1972, pp. 229-241; and Batcher [1974], Proc. NCC, 1974, pp. 405-410.

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