Tight bounds on the complexity of parallel sorting

  • Authors:
  • Tom Leighton

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • STOC '84 Proceedings of the sixteenth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing
  • Year:
  • 1984

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Abstract

In this paper, we prove tight upper and lower bounds on the number or processors, information transfer, wire area and time needed to sort N numbers in a bounded-degree fixed-connection network. Our most important new results are: 1) the construction of an O(N))-node bounded-degree network capable of sorting N numbers in O(log N) word steps, 2) a proof that any network capable of sorting N(7 log N)-bit numbers in T bit-steps requires area A where AT2≥ &Ohgr;(N2log2N), and 3) the construction of a “small-constant-factor” bounded-degree network that sorts N &thgr;(log N)-bit numbers in T &equil; &thgr;(log N) bit steps with A &equil; &thgr;(N2) area.