Math professor turns classroom program into successful business

The application of a distributed memory MIMD (multiple‐instruction multiple‐data) computer architecture to simulate growth during molecular‐beam epitaxy is discussed. The stochastic nature of the problem and the spatial distribution of the lattice onto an array of processors leads to the development of some new ideas and constructs to ensure the system follows the correct dynamical evolution. Performance statistics for the parallel implementation and comparisons of morphological indicators with the sequential model are presented. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.