Virtual Memory Mapped Network Interface for the SHRIMP Multicomputer
Report ID: TR-437-93Author: Sandberg, Jonathan / Blumrich, Matthias A. / Li, Kai / Felten, Edward W. / Alpert, Richard D. / Dubnicki, Cezary
Date: 1993-11-00
Pages: 12
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Abstract:
The network interfaces of existing multicomputers require a significant amount of software overhead at the operating system and user levels to provide protection and to implement message passing protocols. This paper describes the design of a low-latency, high-bandwidth, virtual memory-mapped network interface for the SHRIMP multicomputer project at Princeton University. Without sacrificing protection, the network interface achieves low latency by using virtual memory mapping and write-latency hiding techniques, and obtains high bandwidth by providing a user-level block data transfer mechanism. We have implemented several message passing primitives in an experimental environment, demonstrating that our approach can reduce the message passing overhead to a few user-level instructions.
- This technical report has been published as
- Virtual Memory Mapped Network Interface for the SHRIMP Multicomputer. Matthias A. Blumrich, Kai Li, Richard D. Alpert, Cezary Dubnicki, Edward W. Felten, and Jonathan S. Sandberg, ISCA '94