Flynns Taxonomy

of Computer Architectures
Source: Wikipedia

Michael Flynn 1966

CMPS 5433 Parallel Processing

Flynns Taxonomy
Proposed in 1966
General 4 category system
Does not clearly classify all
models in use today
There are combinations, also.

Four Categories - Terminology

S = Single
I = Instruction Stream
M = Multiple
D = Data Stream

SISD
SIMD
MISD
MIMD

SISD
Single Instruction, Single Data stream
A sequential computer which exploits no
parallelism in either the instruction or data
streams. Examples of SISD architecture are
the traditional single processor machines like
a PC (currently manufactured PC's have
multiple processors) or old mainframes.

SISD

SIMD
Single Instruction, Multiple Data
streams
Exploits multiple data streams against a
single instruction stream to perform
operations which may be naturally
parallelized.
For example, an array processor or GPU.
Typical for splitting large data sets.

SIMD

NOTE: Front-end processor

ONE processor starts the program
It sends code to the other processors

In diagrams, the front-end is represented by

Instruction Pool

which sends code to individual PUs

which execute the remaining code.

PU

SIMD Code
Each processor executes the same code
Code may be variable based on processor id
Example: Sum elements of array A
for each Pi, i = 0 to 9 // executed by front-end
Ti = 0
for j = 0 to 9 // Pi sums its segment
Ti = Ti + A[i * 10 + j]

MISD
Multiple Instruction, Single Data stream
Multiple instructions operate on a single data
stream. Uncommon architecture which is
generally used for fault tolerance.
Systolic Array: process data & pass on to
next PU
Examples include the Space Shuttle flight
control computer.
Least common

MISD

MIMD
Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data
streams
Multiple autonomous processors
simultaneously executing different
instructions on different data.
May send results to central location.
Distributed systems can be shared memory
space or distributed memory space.

MIMD