Introduction to Parallel Computing

Today's supercomputers and parallel computers provide an unprecedented amount of computational power in one machine. A basic understanding of the parallel computing techniques that assist in the capture and utilization of that computational power is essential to appreciate the capabilities and the limitations of parallel supercomputers. In addition, an understanding of technical vocabulary is critical in order to converse about parallel computers. The relevant techniques, vocabulary, currently available hardware architectures, and programming languages which provide the basic concepts of parallel computing are introduced in this document. This document updates the document entitled Introduction to Parallel Supercomputing, M88-42, October 1988. It includes a new section on languages for parallel computers, updates the hardware related sections, and includes current references.