Lecture 2 Introduction to Parallel and Distributed Computing
Lecture 2 Introduction to Parallel and Distributed Computing
In 1970’s (i.e., from 1970 to 1979), processor speeds ranged from 740 KHz to
8 Mhz. Difference shows that both the interpretations are correct
From 2000 to 2009, Speeds ranged from 1.3 GHz to 2.8 GHz
Speed difference is too low but, number of integrated transistors ranged from 37.5
million to 904 million
So, second interpretation is more accurate.
Motivating Parallelism (Cont.)
Why doubling the transistors does not doubles the speed?
• The answer is increase in number of transistor per processor is
due to multi-core CPU’s.
• In multi-core CPUs, speed will depend on the proper utilization
of parallel resources
• To follow Moore’s law, companies had to:
Introduce Ultra Large Scale Integrations (ULSI)
Ultra large-scale integration (ULSI) is the process of embedding millions of
transistors on a single silicon semiconductor microchip
And multi-core processing era
Motivating Parallelism (Cont.)
Will Moore’s law hold forever?
• Solution:
Need to find more scalable distributed and hybrid solutions
Motivating Parallelism (Cont.)
The Memory / Disk Speed Argument
• The program must have low coupling and high cohesion however it
is difficult to create such programs.