This paper presents the Conflict-Free Mem ory (CFM) architecture for designing scalable sharedmemory multiprocessors. For a single-level CFM archi tecture, the architecture improves multiprocessor perfor mance by eliminating memory and interconnection net work contention and reducing network latency. A hierar chical CFM architecture is introduced in this paper, which presents a new approach in implementing scalable sharedmemory multiprocessors. An invalidation-based write-back cache protocol is proposed for the CFM architecture. This cache coherence protocol preserves the low storage overhead of snoopy cache protocols, while it offers the high scalability of directory-based protocols. Furthermore, with the CFM cache protocol, efficient synchronization operations can be implemented.

The authors introduce a novel scheme of shared memory organization and interconnection network structure which supports conflict-free accesses to the shared memory in multiprocessors. This scheme also provides a low latency and low cost mechanism for process synchronization. The hot spot problem observed in many multiprocessors can easily be eliminated with this memory organization and interconnection network structure. Extensions to the architecture for supporting large-scale multiprocessors are discussed. It is demonstrated how data consistency can be maintained among concurrent accesses to the same location in a shared memory. In addition, higher level process synchronization supports based on the conflict-free memory architecture are explained.

The authors present a parallel programming paradigm, resource binding, which offers an architecture-independent environment for various parallel computation models. The resource binding technique, with a simple set of primitives, enables a flexible and consistent way of handling process synchronization, shared resource management, and other problems in parallel programming. High portability can be maintained without losing performance. For a clear introduction to the technique, comparisons are made among resource binding and other well-defined schemes such as semaphore, monitor, message passing, and Linda.>