In order to program SIMD (single instruction stream-multiple data stream) parallel machines used for tasks such as speech and image processing, a language with explicit parallel constructs is often desirable. The language Ada, developed by the Department of Defense, is used here as a basis for such a language. Extensions of Ada, which allow the user to specify such operations as interprocessor communications and activation of processors, are proposed. These features are demonstrated by showing their use in a common speech processing algorithm, the parallel FFT.

Recent progress in integrated circuit technology has made parallel processing a practical method for dealing with large-scale computational problems. A wide variety of parallel architectures have been proposed. Many different languages have been developed for use on these architectures, with various conventional languages being the base language. The ways in which these parallel languages approach the problem of data management are discussed. Methods of data transferrai and their relationship to the underlying architectures are examined. Transferrai among processor memories and between primary and secondary memory will both be discussed. Data allocation among processor memories will also be described.