An Implementation of Static Functional Process Networks

To get high performance on a distributed-memory multicomputer at present and for the foreseeable future, some explicit control is needed. This paper describes work aimed at harnessing the power of the functional notation in exercising such control. We have developed a declarative annotation scheme which allows explicit control over process placement and communications. The language, called Caliban, has been implemented on a conngurable, loosely-coupled commercial multicomputer and we describe the compiler and run-time system.