Distributed Instruction Set Computer

The Distributed Instruction Set Computer, or DISC for short, is an experimental computer system for fine-grained parallel processing. DISC employs a new parallel instruction set, an Early Binding and Scheduling data tagging scheme, and a distributed control mechanism to explore a software dataflow control method in a multiple-functional-unit system. With "zero" system control overhead, multiple instructions are executed in parallel and/or out of order at the highest speed of n instructions/cycle, where n is the number of functional units. The quantitative simulation result indicates that a DISC system with 16 functional units can deliverer a maximal 7.7X performance speedup over a single-functional-unit system at the same clock speed. Exploring a new parallel instruction set and distributed control mechanism, DISC represents three major breakthroughs in the domain of fine-grained parallel processing: (1) Fast multiple instruction issuing mechanism; (2) Parallel and/or out-of-order execution; (3) Software dataflow control scheme.