PPMB: A Partial-Multiple-Bus Multiprocessor Architecture with Improved Cost-Effectiveness

This paper addresses the design and performance analysis of partial-multiple-bus interconnection networks. They are bus architectures that have evolved from multiple-bus structure by dividing buses into groups and reducing bus connections. Their effect is to reduce cost and alleviate arbitration and drive requirements without degrading performance significantly. One such structure, called processor-oriented partial-multiple-bus (or PPMB), is proposed. It serves as an alternative to the conventional structure called memory-oriented partial-multiple-bus (or MPMB) and is aimed at higher system performance at less or equal system cost. It has been shown, both analytically and by simulation, that a substantial increase in system bandwidth (up to 20%) is achieved by the PPMB structure over the MPMB structure. With very large systems, the results also imply a significantly improved cost-effectiveness over the conventional multiple-bus architecture.