Parallel sorting in a ring network of processors

• Published in: IEEE transactions on computers Vol. 38; no. 3; pp. 458 - 464
• Main Authors: Hong, Y.-C., Payne, T.H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.03.1989; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Communication system control; Concurrent computing; Exact sciences and technology; Flows in networks. Combinatorial problems; Intelligent networks; Job shop scheduling; Operational research and scientific management; Operational research. Management science; Optimal scheduling; Packet radio networks; Sorting; Spread spectrum communication; Table lookup; Testing; Multiprocessor; Ringed network; Parallel algorithm; Computer network; Sort routine; Computer system; Distributed system; Combinatorics
• ISSN: 0018-9340; 1557-9956
• DOI: 10.1109/12.21133

A parallel implementation of selection sorting algorithms is presented that uses a ring-connected array of processors, in which each processor has the same amount of memory. The scheme allows all processors to have the same amount of memory with a small fragmentation loss. Uniformity in the size of the memories provides advantages from the viewpoint of manufacture, maintenance, inventory, item placement, and many other aspects of system design. These memories can, together, function as an interleaved memory for a general-purpose computer. Hence, it is possible to build a medium-scale system in which parallel-sort is implemented as a primitive, like block-move, without a large increment in hardware complexity and cost. An analysis is presented that shows how to improve performance by overlapping comparisons with memory accesses and how to achieve performance improvement by applying carry-look-ahead techniques to comparison.< >