🚀 go-pugleaf

shers@masala.lcs.mit.edu (Alexander The Great                                                                 Sherstinsky) writes:

>Hello,

>I am going to ask what might seem a stupid question, but here it goes anyway:

>I am trying to build a new parallel computer as part of my thesis.  At my 
>disposal are off-the-shelf components as well as the ability to build custom
>chips (with MOSIS).  Here is the problem:  The architecture could really 
>benefit from having a large 5-port-read, 5-port-write RAM, all ports being 
>independent. Does such a beast exist?  Or if I am going to design a custom 
>chip for it, how to do it without wasting too much silicon real estate?

>Any response concerning this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Jon's response was fairly accurate, but I think it danced around
the issue that you are addressing.  You're building a parallel
computer.  Since it is for a thesis, I assume that the architecture
is unique in some way, and you have identified a need for multi-
port RAM.

Multi-port RAM is *very* expensive, as far as silicon goes.  You
would be much better off faking it, i.e. use single-port RAM's
and find some way to multiplex them or put them into banks (as
Jon basically said).

-- 


Greg Frazier	frazier@CS.UCLA.EDU	!{ucbvax,rutgers}!ucla-cs!frazier