Multithreaded supercomputer seeks software for data-intensive...(eady for another trip to the memory bank...)

"The processors are doing useful work all the time, so the computer can be faster," said Chavarra. Each Cray XMT processor has 128 hardware threads with which to access the shared memory.

Conceptually, this advantage translates into the machines being able to handle complex, random networks of data. Mainstream machines split up the data, assigning parcels of data to individual processing units. For example, a supercomputer trying to model how a community of microbes behaves would subdivide the community spatially.

The computer would then analyze what goes on within each subdivision, but it couldn't reach across other subdivisions to find out what happened to the microbe that wandered off to the other side of its habitat. Multithreaded machines, however, can examine the whole space at once, essentially assigning each thread to a microbe.

"If all of your microbes move to the other side of the territory, it doesn't matter, because the threads still have access," said Chavarra.

Another advantage multithreaded machines have over mainsteam computers is in power consumption. Although the Cray has not yet been tested, other multithreaded machines have shown reduced energy usage compared to traditional architectures.

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