http:^^www.cs.rutgers.edu^cam^

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<TITLE>Rutgers CAM Project </TITLE>
<h1>The Rutgers CAM Project</h1>
<!WA0><img src = "http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/cam/camlogo.gif">

<p>

The Rutgers CAM2000 Memory Architecture uses the concepts of
associative processing to overcome the shortcomings of conventional
von Neumann architecture in dealing with compute-bound applications
involving massive amounts of data.  The architecture provides hardware
support for data parallel, reduction, broadcast, and parallel
prefix/suffix operations within a memory architecture that is DRAM
compatible.  

The CAM2000 architecture is particularly appropriate for applications
that require simple operations (e.g., counting, matching, etc.) over
large amounts of data.  It is designed to replace the memory, not the
processor, of a conventional computer and is a dual of cache.  It
ameliorates the performance bottleneck imposed by the processor/memory
bus by moving processing across into the memory.  The CAM2000 can
emulate existing memory functions, and run existing software
unchanged.  Furthermore, software can be upgraded incrementally, on a
statement-by-statement basis, to use associative functions.

<p>

The CAM2000 applies the associative processing model by placing many
word-width, low performance processors in the memory.  The word-width
hardware designed for the CAM2000 provides significant speedup and
reduces software complexity compared to approaches using single-bit
data paths.  In addition, the CAM2000 supports extended precision
(functions on data wider than its hardware) allowing arbitrary
precision CAM operations to execute with minimal slowdown.

This approach can produce significant speed-up even when the in-memory
processors run only at memory speed.  By 2000 a CAM architecture can
provide 5-10 giga-ops on a single chip that replaces DRAM,
significantly increases system peak performance, and scales with
memory size.

<p>

The graphic above illustrates the architecture of the Rutgers CAM2000
which replaces DRAM chips in an otherwise conventional architecture.
Half the area of the CAM2000 chip is DRAM and the other half is
processing elements.  The processing elements can provide enormously
high parallelism whenever it is applicable; otherwise the CAM chip
acts as ordinary memory.


<h3>Personel</h3>
<ul>
<li><!WA1><a href="http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~levy">Saul Levy </a> --   [e-mail], 908-445-3523
<li><!WA2><a href="http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~josh">Josh Hall</a> --  [e-mail], 908-445-3896
<li><!WA3><a href="http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~dsmith">Don Smith </a> -- [e-mail], 908-445-3628
<li>Keith Miyake -- [e-mail], 908-445-2558
<li>Chung-Hsing Hsu -- [e-mail], 908-445-4635
</ul>

<p>

This work is supported by ARPA and NASA under NAG 2-668

<h3>Online Publications</h3>

<p>
J. Storrs Hall,
<!WA4><a href = "http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/cam/fornax.ps">
"FORNAX"</a>, 
USENIX VHLL,
April 1995 (FORNAX is a very high-level programming language
we are developing to ameliorate the difficulties of programming
the unconventional architecture of CAM (and other parallel 
machines)).

<p>
J. Storrs Hall and Don Smith,
<!WA5><a href = "http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/cam/dbmm.ps">
"Database Mining and Matching in Rutgers CAM"</a>, 
2nd Associative Processing & Applications Workshop, 
Syracuse University, July 1993

<p>
J. Storrs Hall, Don Smith, and Keith Miyake,
<!WA6><a href = "http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/cam/collective.ps">
"Collective Functions in the Rutgers CAM"</a>, 
Associative Processing & Applications Workshop, 
Syracuse University, July 1992

<p>
Donald E. Smith, J. Storrs Hall, and  Keith M. Miyake, 
<!WA7><a href = "http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/cam/TR196.ps">
"Rutgers CAM Chip Architecture"</a>, 
Technical Report No. LCSR-TR-196, 
Department of Computer Science, 
Rutgers University, 1992

<p>
Donald E. Smith, Keith M. Miyake, and J. Storrs Hall
<!WA8><a href = "http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/cam/TRxxx.ps">
"A Greedy Rescheduling Assembler for the CAM2000" </a>,
Department of Computer Science, 
Rutgers University, 1994

<p>
Keith M. Miyake and Donald E. Smith, 
<!WA9><a href = "http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/cam/TR191.ps">
"Circuit Design Tool User's Manual"</a>,  
Technical Report No. LCSR-TR-191, 
Department of Computer Science, 
Rutgers University, 1992