MULTIPROCESSOR ARCHITECTURE WITH HIERARCHICAL PROCESSOR ORGANIZATION

摘要

A computing system is provided that has a multiprocessor architecture. The processors are hierarchically organized so that one or more slave processors at a senior hierarchical level provide tasks to one or more slave processors at a junior hierarchical level. Further, the slave processors at the junior hierarchical level will have a different functional capability than the slave processors at the senior hierarchical level, such that the junior slave processors can perform some types of operations better than the senior slave processors. A master computing process distributes operation sets among one or more computing processes running on a processor at the senior hierarchical level, which will begin executing operations in the operation set. When a process running at the senior hierarchical level identifies one or more operations of the type better performed by a processor at the junior hierarchical level, it provides this operation or operations to a process running on a processor at the junior hierarchical level. After the process running at the junior hierarchical level executes its assigned operation or operations, it returns the results to the process running at the senior hierarchical level to complete the execution of the operation set.