Parallel processing

Parallel processing is the use of concurrency in the operation of a computer system to increase throughput (q.v.), increase fault-tolerance, or reduce the time needed to solve particular problems. Parallel processing is the only route to the highest levels of computer performance. Physical laws and manufacturing capabilities limit the switching times and integration densities of current semiconductor-based devices, putting a ceiling on the speed at which any single device can operate. For this reason all modern computers rely upon parallelism to some extent. The fastest computers exhibit parallelism at many levels.