Most current architectures have one of two large registers organizing, either a register stacks, or a large sized single register sets. A single register set excels over a stack if a program requires frequent access to globals. A register stack performs better if deep recursive chains exist. It is generally agreed that neither organization will benefit programs written in a concurrent language because of the heavy context switch overhead. In this research a register hardware organization called "threaded windows" is examined to enhance the performance of concurrent systems, and sequential programs. The organization allows the registers to be dynamically restructured to either of the above forms, and any combination of the above forms. This permits the compiler, or the programmer, to capitalize upon each register organization's strong points and avoid their weak points. In addition, hardware fault tolerance is facilitated, as well as graceful runtime fault detection and recovery. This work will also explore the applications of this register configuration to programming paradigms such as object oriented languages, functional languages, and logic languages. This project proposes a study of a new approach in designing register organization for high performance computer systems. It takes into account several recent developments in computer architectural design which can tackle the memory latency problem in such high performance systems. The effort furthers VPW program objectives to provide opportunities for women to advance their careers in science or engineering through research, and to encourage other women to pursue careers in these areas through the investigator's enhanced visibility as a role model on the host campus. The proposed activities which contribute to the second objective include: teaching an undergraduate course, and jointly teaching a second year graduate course; doing a colloquial presentation; involving students in research; serving on the Women and Engineering Program Faculty Advisory Board and and being involved in WIE's annual conference; participating in informal discussion groups; and mentoring students, especially those with career interruptions.
