Wawrzynek The focus of this research is on designing application- specific VLSI architectures, specifically for the generation of realistic musical sounds using parallel processing and VLSI technologies. The approach is to develop mathematical models for the motions of physical musical instruments, and to numerically solve these models to produce sounds using "synthesis by simulation." The design of efficient and fast application- specific VLSI computing architectures is crucial to the success of this project due to the requirements on massive computations and on real-time human interaction. The focus of this research is on the integration of the vector coprocessor, designed to accelerate neural net computations, into a supercomputer designed for connectionist computations. This supercomputer will use the high-speed CMOS techniques under development and may include provisions for analog I/O.
