PARALLEL COMPUTER SYSTEM INCLUDING EFFICIENT ARRANGEMENT FOR PERFORMING COMMUNICATIONS AMONG PROCESSING NODE TO EFFECT AN ARRAY TRANSPOSITION OPERATION

A processing element array and a controller. The processing element array comprises a plurality of processing element nodes interconnected by a plurality of communications links in the form of a hypercube. Each processing element node has a memory including a plurality of storage locations for storing data, and in addition has a hypercube address. The controller controls the processing element nodes in parallel to enable the transfer of data items in a selected manner among the storage locations of the processing element nodes in a series of communications steps. The controller generates a base communications table and enables the processing element nodes to, in parallel, generate respective processing element node communications schedule tables as a selected function of the base communications table and the respective node's hypercube address. Each processing element node communications schedule table associates, for each of a plurality of iterations, storage locations of the processing element node's memory with a dimension of the hypercube. The controller then enables the processing element nodes to, in parallel in a series of transfer iterations, facilitate the transfer of data between storage locations identified in the processing element nodes' respective processing element node communications schedule tables and communications links of the associated dimension.