A new scalable broadcast algorithm for multiport meshes with minimum communication steps

Abstract

Many broadcast algorithms have been proposed for the mesh in the literature. However, most of these algorithms do not exhibit good scalability properties as the network size increases. As a consequence, most existing broadcast algorithms cannot support real-world parallel applications that require large-scale system sizes due to their high computational demands. Motivated by this observation, this paper makes two contributions. Firstly, in an effort to minimise the effects of network size on communication performance, this study proposes a new routing approach that enables the development of efficient broadcast algorithms that can maintain good performance levels for various mesh sizes. Secondly, based on the new routing approach, we propose a new adaptive broadcast algorithm for the mesh. The main feature of the proposed algorithm is its ability to handle broadcast operations with a fixed number of message-passing steps irrespective of the network size. Results from extensive comparative analysis reveal that our algorithm exhibits superior performance characteristics over those of the well-known Recursive Doubling and Extending Dominating Node algorithms.