Résumé
Current processor and multiprocessor architectures are almost all based on the Von Neumann paradigm. Based on this paradigm, one can build a general-purpose computer using very few transis- tors, e.g., 2250 transistors in the first Intel 4004 microprocessor. In other terms, the notion that on-chip space is a scarce resource is at the root of this paradigm which trades on-chip space for program execution time. Today, technology considerably relaxed this space constraint. Still, few research works question this paradigm as the most adequate basis for high-performance computers, even though the paradigm was not initially designed to scale with technology and space.In this article, we propose a different computing model, defining both an architecture and a language, that is intrinsically designed to exploit space; we then investigate the implementation issues of a computer based on this model, and we provide simulation results for small programs and a simplified architecture as a first proof of concept. Through this model, we also want to outline that revisit- ing some of the principles of today’s computing paradigm has the potential of overcoming major limitations of current architectures.