Systolic (VLSI) arrays for relational database operations

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of VLSI technology to perform relational database operations directly in hardware. It is shown that relational compulations, such as intersection, remove-duplicates, union, join, and division, can all be pipelined elegantly and efficiently on networks of processors having an array structure. These (systolic) processor arrays are readily and cost-effectively implementable with present technology, due to the extreme simplicity of their processors, and the high regularity of their interconnection structures.