Space: the where

Space is a scarce resource, with a direct cost associated to it. A computational engine, such as a Stored Program Machine, needs to allocate area for ALUs and register files, and to make these work well, even more space is required to surround these resources with cache hierarchies and memory controllers. But even if space was freely available, it still presents a cost from a parallel computational perspective, since it takes energy to get information across space, as it takes time to do so.

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