The APRAM: incorporating asynchrony into the PRAM model

The PRAM model is a machine that comprises p processors and m memory cells; each processor can access each memory cell in constant time. The PRAM has proved a popular model for parallel algorithm design. For the task of designing efficient, highly parallel algorithms is quite difficult, in general. The PRAM model provides an abstraction that strips away problems of synchronization, reliability and communication delays, thereby permitting algorithm designers to focus first and foremost on the structure of the computational problem at hand, rather than the architecture of a currently available machine. As a consequence, a considerable body of PRAM algorithms has been discovered in the past several years, and a number of powerful techniques for designing such algorithms have been identified (see, for instance, the survey articles [KR88, EG88]).

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