Extending HPF for Advanced Data Parallel Applications

Abstract

The stated goal of High Performance Fortran (HPF) was to address the problems of writing data parallel programs where the distribution of data affects performance. After examining the current version of the language we are led to the conclusion that HPF has not fully achieved this goal. While the basic distribution functions offered by the language - regular block, cyclic, and block cyclic distributions - can support regular numerical algorithms, advanced applications such as particle-in-cell codes or unstructured mesh solvers cannot be expressed adequately. We believe that this is a major weakness of HPF, significantly reducing its chances of becoming accepted in the numerical community. The paper discusses the data distribution and alignment issues in detail, points out some flaws in the basic language, and outlines possible future paths of development. Furthermore, we briefly deal with the issue of task parallelism and its integration with the data parallel paradigm of HPF.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA281652

Entities

People

  • Barbara Chapman
  • Hans Zima
  • Piyush Mehrotra

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Algorithms
  • Communication Channels
  • Compilers
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computations
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Distribution Functions
  • Engineering
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Language
  • Particles
  • Simulations
  • Specifications
  • Two Dimensional
  • Workload

Readers

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.
  • Systems Analysis and Design