This book introduces new massively parallel computer (MPSoC)
architectures called invasive tightly coupled processor arrays. It
proposes strategies, architecture designs, and programming interfaces
for invasive TCPAs that allow invading and subsequently executing loop
programs with strict requirements or guarantees of non-functional
execution qualities such as performance, power consumption, and
reliability. For the first time, such a configurable processor array
architecture consisting of locally interconnected VLIW processing
elements can be claimed by programs, either in full or in part, using
the principle of invasive computing. Invasive TCPAs provide
unprecedented energy efficiency for the parallel execution of nested
loop programs by avoiding any global memory access such as GPUs and may
even support loops with complex dependencies such as loop-carried
dependencies that are not amenable to parallel execution on GPUs. For
this purpose, the book proposes different invasion strategies for
claiming a desired number of processing elements (PEs) or region within
a TCPA exclusively for an application according to performance
requirements. It not only presents models for implementing invasion
strategies in hardware, but also proposes two distinct design flavors
for dedicated hardware components to support invasion control on TCPAs.