•Caches are essential to gain the maximum performance from modern microprocessors
•The performance of a cache is close to that of SRAM but at the cost of DRAM
•Caches can be used to form the basis of a parallel computer
•Bus-based multiprocessors do not scale well: max < 10
nodes
•Larger-scale shared-memory multiprocessors require more complicated networks and
protocols
•CC-NUMA is becoming popular since systems can be built from commodity components
(chips, boards, OSs) and use existing software
•e.g. HP/Convex, Sequent, Data General, SGI, Sun, IBM