Mechanism for broadcasting data in a massively parallell array processing system

Claim 1

An array processing system comprising: a grid array of processing elements, each of which is surrounded by a group of nearest neighbor processing elements in the grid array, each of said processing elements comprising an input multiplexer having a multiplexer output line and a plurality of multiplexer input lines each of which is connected to a different member of the group of nearest neighbor processing elements for that processing element; a demultiplexer circuit having a first input line and a plurality of first output lines each of which is connected to a different member of the group of nearest neighbor processing elements for that processing element, said demultiplexer circuit comprising a control circuit that responds to a broadcast control signal by electrically coupling the output line of said input multiplexer of the same processing element to one or more of said first output lines to form a signal path from a selected one of the plurality of multiplexer input lines to said one or more first output lines, wherein said signal path is without any intermediate storage and/or latching devices that delay the propagation of a broadcast signal over said signal path from said selected one of the plurality of multiplexer input lines to said one or more first output lines.