Parallel Hashing: An Efficient Implementation of Shared Memory

A central issue in the theory of parallel computation is the gap between the ideal models that utilize shared memory and the feasible models that consist of a bounded-degree network of processors sharing no common memory. This problem has been widely studied. Here a tight bound for the probabilistic complexity of this problem is established. The solution in this paper is based on a probabilistic scheme for implementing shared memory on a bounded-degree network of processors. This scheme, which we term parallel has/zing, enables n processors to store and retrieve an arbitrary set of n data items in O(logn) parallel steps. The items’ locations are specified by a function chosen randomly from a small class of universal hash functions. A hash function in this class has a small description and can therefore be efficiently distributed among the processors. A deterministic lower bound for the point-to-point communication model is also presented. © 1988, ACM. All rights reserved.