Programmability and performance portability aspects of heterogeneous multi-/manycore systems

We discuss three complementary approaches that can provide both portability and an increased level of abstraction for the programming of heterogeneous multicore systems. Together, these approaches also support performance portability, as currently investigated in the EU FP7 project PEPPHER. In parti...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kessler, C., Dastgeer, U., Thibault, S., Namyst, R., Richards, A., Dolinsky, U., Benkner, S., Traff, J. L., Pllana, S.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Graphics processing unit
Performance evaluation
Pipeline processing
Programming
Runtime
Skeleton
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:We discuss three complementary approaches that can provide both portability and an increased level of abstraction for the programming of heterogeneous multicore systems. Together, these approaches also support performance portability, as currently investigated in the EU FP7 project PEPPHER. In particular, we consider (1) a library-based approach, here represented by the integration of the SkePU C++ skeleton programming library with the StarPU runtime system for dynamic scheduling and dynamic selection of suitable execution units for parallel tasks; (2) a language-based approach, here represented by the Offload-C++ high-level language extensions and Offload compiler to generate platform-specific code; and (3) a component-based approach, specifically the PEPPHER component system for annotating user-level application components with performance metadata, thereby preparing them for performance-aware composition. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches and show how they could complement each other in an integrational programming framework for heterogeneous multicore systems.
ISSN:1530-1591
1558-1101
DOI:10.1109/DATE.2012.6176582