3.

1 Control mechanism
Taxonomy based on control mechanism follows in general principles introduced by
Flynn [7]. According to this, the classical, sequential (von Neumann) architectures are
called single instruction stream,single data stream (SISD) computers, since single
sequence of instructions operates on a single sequence of data.
Processing units in modern (parallel) computers either operate under the centralized
control of a single control unit or work independently. In architectures referred to
as single instruction stream, multiple data stream (SIMD), a single control unit
dispatches instructions to each processing unit. Typical commercial examples (rather
from the past) include ICL DAP, DEC MPP, TMC CM2/CM200, MasPar MP-1/2.
Computers in which each processor is capable of executing a different program
independent of the other processors are called multiple instruction stream, multiple
data stream (MIMD) computers. This kind of architectures is the most popular at
present; examples of MIMD computers include SGI Power Challenge and SGI/Cray
Origin2000, IBM RS6K SP, TMC CM5, HP/Convex Exemplar, Cray T3D/E, Intel
Paragon XP/S.
Since in SIMD computers there is only one control unit, they require less hardware.
They are well suited for data-parallel programs and due to automatic synchronization
among processors in each instruction cycle - they are adequate for programs with high
synchronization requirements. Number of processors (specially designed for a SIMD
computer) amounts typically to thousands or tens of thousands. Their main drawback
appears to be lack of possibility of executing different instructions in the same clock
cycle. This kind of multiprocessor computers loses significance at present.
Individual processors in a MIMD computer are more complex. They are usually
general purpose, ``off the shelf'' - being used also in other kinds of computers like
workstations and servers - thus binary compatibility between simple workstations and
a single processor of the MIMD computer can be available. Number of processors
varies from tens to thousands. Some of more sophisticated constructions have extra
hardware to provide fast synchronization, which enebles them to efficiently realize
data-parallel programs. Others compile data-parallel programs to the intermediate
level with explicit message-passing calls to be executed further on within this
environment.

The MIMD systems are developing fast including both hardware and software
elements. They have been recognized as a future architecture of a modern massively
parallel processor (MPP) supercomputer.
Third kind of parallel computer architecture is a network of computers (see Fig. 1). It
constitutes a virtual network computer using one of the message-passing programing
environments. Computers in the network can formulate a cluster, which is usually
dedicated to computing purposes for one user at a given time. Often the computers in
the cluster are connected together with high-speed networks as ATM or Fibre
Channel. Another possibility is to use computers from the existing network and to run
distributed programs independently of load of local users. Since, especially in the last
case, computers can be of different performance to efficiently fetch idle cycles
algorithms with load balancing are profitable.
There is also a special class of computers which conventionally belongs to SIMD
machines - vector computers. Chronologically, when Seymour Cray introduced the
idea in 1976, it was in fact the first class of architecture breaking with sequental
processing. Due to substantial development of algorithms and of programming
methodology devoted to vector processing, nowadays vector machines are used as
classical number crunchers (see for example [8]).