The Coherent Processor: an associative processor architecture and applications

The Coherent Processor (CP), a massively parallel computer based on content addressable memory, is discussed. The CP offers advantages such as high performance, low cost, low weight, low power consumption, and a simple system interface and programming model. These features make it well-suited for real-time and embedded systems. The CP is currently available for both the VME and MicroChannel buses with single-card configurations of up to 8192 processors. System configurations with 65536 processors or more are also available. The CP software supports MS-DOS, AIX, and SUN-OS (Unix). Applications of the CP are described, including LAN (local area network) routing, genetic sequence comparison, pattern recognition, image processing, expert systems, databases, radar, X-windows, text filters, neural networks, and sparse matrix computation. >