Flynn's taxonomy


Flynn's taxonomy

(architecture)A classification of computer architecturesbased on the number of streams of instructions and data:

Single instruction/single data stream (SISD) - a sequentialcomputer.

Multiple instruction/single data stream (MISD) - unusual.

Single instruction/multiple data streams (SIMD) - e.g. anarray processor.

Multiple instruction/multiple data streams (MIMD) - multipleautonomous processors simultaneously executing differentinstructions on different data.

[Flynn, M. J., "Some Computer Organizations and TheirEffectiveness", IEEE Transactions on Computing C-21, No. 9,Sep 1972, pp 948-960].

["A Survey of Parallel Computer Architectures", Duncan, Ralph,IEEE Computer, Feb 1990, pp 5-16].