Method of operating a multiprocessor computer to solve a set of simultaneous equations

摘要

The present invention relates to the solution of sets of linear equations by microprocessors. In particular, when the process for solving a set of linear equations can be resolved into a set of tasks, each of which can be processed by a processing element in a multiprocessor computer, embodiments of the present invention determine the scheduling of the processing of respective tasks by each processing element. In an exemplary embodiment, the order in which each processing element should process those tasks distributed to it is determined by computing a cost metric indicative of the amount of time required to process the task and a completion time metric, indicative of the amount of time required to process all remaining tasks after that task is completed. Consequently, the tasks distributed to a given processing element are processed in an order based on the completion time metrics computed for the respective tasks.