Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports Volume 38 July 28, 2000

tems. In particular this application, illustrated in the document entails an integration of finite element and fluid dynamic
simulations to address the cooling of turbine blades of a gas turbine engine design. It is not uncommon to encounter high-temperature,
film-cooled turbine airfoils with 1,000,000s of degrees of freedom. This results because of the complexity of the various
components of the airfoils, requiring fine-grain meshing for accuracy. Additional information is contained in the original.
Author
Distributed Processing; Computer Systems Design; Computational Grids; Concurrent Processing; Software Engineering
20000064595 Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA USA
Highly Parallel Computing Architectures by using Arrays of Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA): Opportunities,
Challenges, and Recent Results
Fijany, Amir, Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech., USA; Toomarian, Benny N., Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of
Tech., USA; February 2000; In English; See also 20000064579; No Copyright; Abstract Only; Available from CASI only as part
of the entire parent document
There has been significant improvement in the performance of VLSI devices, in terms of size, power consumption, and speed,
in recent years and this trend may also continue for some near future. However, it is a well known fact that there are major obstacles,
i.e., physical limitation of feature size reduction and ever increasing cost of foundry, that would prevent the long term continuation
of this trend. This has motivated the exploration of some fundamentally new technologies that are not dependent on the conventional
feature size approach. Such technologies are expected to enable scaling to continue to the ultimate level, i.e., molecular and
atomistic size. Quantum computing, quantum dot-based computing, DNA based computing, biologically inspired computing,
etc., are examples of such new technologies. In particular, quantum-dots based computing by using Quantum-dot Cellular Automata
(QCA) has recently been intensely investigated as a promising new technology capable of offering significant improvement
over conventional VLSI in terms of reduction of feature size (and hence increase in integration level), reduction of power consumption,
and increase of switching speed. Quantum dot-based computing and memory in general and QCA specifically, are
intriguing to NASA due to their high packing density (10(exp 11) - 10(exp 12) per square cm ) and low power consumption (no
transfer of current) and potentially higher radiation tolerant. Under Revolutionary Computing Technology (RTC) Program at the
NASA/JPL Center for Integrated Space Microelectronics (CISM), we have been investigating the potential applications of QCA
for the space program. to this end, exploiting the intrinsic features of QCA, we have designed novel QCA-based circuits for coplanner
(i.e., single layer) and compact implementation of a class of data permutation matrices, a class of interconnection networks,
and a bit-serial processor. Building upon these circuits, we have developed novel algorithms and QCA-based architectures
for highly parallel and systolic computation of signal/image processing applications, such as FFT and Wavelet and Wlash-Hadamard
Transforms.
Author
Automata Theory; Microelectronics; Parallel Processing (Computers); Quantum Dots; Very Large Scale Integration; Nanotechnology;
Parallel Computers
20000064596 Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA USA
HTMT-class Latency Tolerant Parallel Architecture for Petaflops Scale Computation
Sterling, Thomas, Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech., USA; Bergman, Larry, Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of
Tech., USA; February 2000; In English; See also 20000064579; No Copyright; Abstract Only; Available from CASI only as part
of the entire parent document
Computational Aero Sciences and other numeric intensive computation disciplines demand computing throughputs substantially
greater than the Teraflops scale systems only now becoming available. The related fields of fluids, structures, thermal, combustion,
and dynamic controls are among the interdisciplinary areas that in combination with sufficient resolution and advanced
adaptive techniques may force performance requirements towards Petaflops. This will be especially true for compute intensive
models such as Navier-Stokes are or when such system models are only part of a larger design optimization computation involving
many design points. Yet recent experience with conventional MPP configurations comprising commodity processing and memory
components has shown that larger scale frequently results in higher programming difficulty and lower system efficiency. While
important advances in system software and algorithms techniques have had some impact on efficiency and programmability for
certain classes of problems, in general it is unlikely that software alone will resolve the challenges to higher scalability. As in the
past, future generations of high-end computers may require a combination of hardware architecture and system software advances
to enable efficient operation at a Petaflops level. The NASA led HTMT project has engaged the talents of a broad interdisciplinary
team to develop a new strategy in high-end system architecture to deliver petaflops scale computing in the 2004/5 timeframe. The
Hybrid-Technology, MultiThreaded parallel computer architecture incorporates several advanced technologies in combination
with an innovative dynamic adaptive scheduling mechanism to provide unprecedented performance and efficiency within practi-
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