Serial arithmetic techniques

Abstract

It has recently been suggested 1 that the association of serial-mode functional (arithmetic) units with multi-instruction counter, multiprocessing computing systems may result in highly efficient processing complexes. This follows from the fact of life that in going from parallel to serial realizations of various algorithms the hardware requirements fall much more rapidly than does the speed. Furthermore the speeds of the slower, serial, arithmetic units may be more closely matched to those of memory and to other parts of the system. Thus the need for extra control circuitry, for high-speed registers, queueing circuits and look-ahead control, for example, is reduced and the system's overall cost/performance ratio improved. For appropriate serial configurations then, performance may be improved relative to a parallel system when system costs are to be held constant. Reconfiguration of a fast parallel circuit, for example, can yield a number of slower serial devices which, when kept busy, will increase throughput of the system.