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Association for Computing Machinery

Magazine: Spring 1999 | Volume 5, No. 3es

Re-configurable computing

By Richard Swan, Anthony Wyatt, Richard Cant, Caroline Langensiepen

HTML | In the Digital Library
Tags: Application-specific VLSI designs, Design, Performance, Robustness

The processor-memory bottleneck

The rate of improvement in microprocessor speed exceeds the rate of improvement in DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) speed. So although the disparity between processor and memory speed is already an issue, downstream someplace it will be a much bigger one. Hence computer designers are faced with an increasing Processor - Memory Performance Gap [1], which now is the primary obstacle to improved computer system performance. This article examines this problem as well as its various solutions.

By Nihar R. Mahapatra, Balakrishna Venkatrao

HTML | In the Digital Library
Tags: Architectures, Design, Performance, Robustness, Semiconductor memory