The Architecture of the FAIM-1 Symbolic Multiprocessing System

The F A I M 1 is an ultra-concurrent symbolic multiprocessor which attempts to significantly improve the performance of AI systems. The system includes a language in which concurrent AI application programs can be written, a machine which provides direct hardware support for the language, and a resource allocation mechanism which maps programs onto the machine in order to exploit the program's concurrency in an efficient manner at run-time. The paper provides a brief synopsis of the nature of the language and resource allocation mechanism, but is primarily concerned with the description of the physical architecture of the machine. The architecture is consistent with high performance VLSI implementation and packaging technology, and is easily extended to include arbitrary numbers of processors.