Signal routing in a stacked array of multiprocessor boards

摘要

A system is described for arraying multi-device processing nodes (1,2) in a 3-dimensional computing architecture and for flexibly connecting their ports. The topology of each processing node is of a fixed and constant physical geometry. The nodes may comprise a digital signal processor chip, a static RAM, and a communications and network controller. The nodes or tiles are 4-connected, each having logical north, east, south and west ports. The nodes are mounted on boards (17,18,19). Selective connection of essentially any one port to another on a different board is effected by use of a routing and spacer element (50) having internal routing paths preselected to support a desired node interconnection architecture. Novel multiprocessing architectures and connections to a Host computer are also disclosed.