High-speed transformation of primitive data types in a heterogeneous distributed computer system

The performance of heterogeneous distributed computed systems is severely limited by the inability to transfer primitive data types between dissimilar processors because of the different representations used. The use of hardware transformation units is proposed to reduce the time required to transfer the data. The transformation units must know the source processor type, data type, and destination processor type and must be capable of performing all required transformations. Three location schemes for the transformation units are local, central, and distributed. The three schemes are compared for twelve factors, and performance models for each scheme are developed.<<ETX>>