Combinators as control mechansims in multiprocessor systems

Abstract

<p>An approach for automatically decomposing functional programs for execution on a loosely coupled multiprocessor system is presented. We start with a language definition given denotationally in terms of the lambda calculus. This definition is then mapped into combinator expressions. Since the parallelism is inherent to the semantics of the language, it is reflected in the definitions of the combinators as well. We capture this parallelism by mapping the combinators onto an underlying implementation consisting of multiple processors. The combinators not only dictate the underlying architecture needed for support, but also direct the allocation of code for parallel evaluation of the combinator expressions.</p>