HPCwire: PGI Release 2010 Includes Support for GPUs

The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing

HPCwire >> Off the Wire

November 12, 2009

PGI Release 2010 Includes Support for GPUs

Latest compilers from The Portland Group extend support for the PGI Accelerator Programming Model and PGI CUDA Fortran

PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 12 -- The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, today announced that release 2010 of the PGI line of high-performance parallelizing compilers and development tools for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows will be available on Tuesday, Nov. 17. PGI 2010 is the first general release to include full support for the PGI Accelerator Programming model v1.0 standard on x64 processor-based systems incorporating NVIDIA CUDA-enabled graphical processing units (GPUs). In addition to supporting high-level programming of accelerators using the PGI Accelerator programming model, the PGI Release 2010 also includes PGI CUDA Fortran, an explicit GPU programming model and application programming interface (API) that gives expert programmers direct control of all aspects of programming NVIDIA GPUs.

The PGI Accelerator programming model is a collection of compiler directives used to specify regions of code in Fortran and C programs that can be offloaded from a host CPU to an attached accelerator to enhance performance. Applications optimized using the PGI Accelerator directives remain 100 percent portable to other compilers and platforms, and execute on systems with or without a GPU accelerator.

PGI 2010 offers full support for the PGI Accelerator programming model including the following new features:

GPU device-resident data -- the ability to define and leave data on the GPU across accelerator regions and subroutine boundaries.
Support for COMPLEX and DOUBLE COMPLEX data types in Fortran.
Support for C structs and Fortran derived types.
Automatic GPU-side loop unrolling for improved performance.
Support for Accelerator regions nested within OpenMP parallel regions.
Support for Linux, Mac OS X (including Snow Leopard) and Windows (including Windows 7).

"Within five years, most HPC systems will include both x86 CPUs and accelerators in some form," said Douglas Miles, director of The Portland Group. "The PGI 2010 compilers will play a role in establishing accelerated computing as the mainstream HPC architecture."

PGI CUDA Fortran includes a Fortran 95/03 compiler and tool chain for native programming of NVIDIA GPUs using Fortran. CUDA Fortran subroutines can launch and execute in parallel on the hundreds of cores in an NVIDIA GPU under control of an x64 host CPU. Developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, PGI CUDA Fortran extensions supported in the PGI 2010 Fortran 95/03 compiler enable HPC developers to explicitly control all aspects of data movement, memory utilization and computation on CUDA GPUs.

Additional new features in the PGI 2010 compilers and tools include support for more Fortran 2003 incremental features, the latest EDG 4.1 C++ front-end with enhanced GNU and Microsoft compatibility, OpenMP parallel programming support for up to 256 cores, and AVX code generation. PGI 2010 also includes a major update to the PGPROF performance profiler, which now supports performance profiling of binary executables without re-compiling or any special software privileges, uniform operation and features on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, support for PGI Accelerator and PGI CUDA Fortran GPU-side performance statistics, and an updated graphical user interface. Finally, PGI 2010 supports the latest operating system releases including Red Hat Fedora 10/11, SuSE 11.1 and Ubuntu 9, Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7.

Enhancements in the PGI 2010 release of PGI Visual Fortran for Microsoft Visual Studio include full support for the PGI Accelerator Programming model and PGI CUDA Fortran on NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs, and the addition of a new standalone version of the PGPROF performance profiler for x64 and GPUs with support for the Common Compiler Feedback Format (CCFF). CCFF is a draft standard published by PGI that defines what compiler information is stored and how the information is formatted. CCFF enables HPC tools providers to offer more and better information about optimizing performance.

More information about the PGI Accelerator Programming model is available online at www.pgroup.com/accelerate. PGI CUDA Fortran information is available separately at www.pgroup.com/cudafortran. Evaluation copies of the new PGI 2010 compilers are available from The Portland Group Web site at www.pgroup.com. Registration is required.

About The Portland Group

The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, is the premier supplier of high-performance Fortran, C, and C++ compilers and tools for high-end computing systems and x64 and x86 processor-based workstations, servers and clusters. PGI products are used widely by engineers, researchers and scientists in high-performance computing (HPC), the field of technical computing engaged in the modeling and simulation of complex processes, such as ocean modeling, weather forecasting, seismic analysis, bioinformatics and other areas. PGI compilers, which convert software programs into the binary instructions that computers understand, are recognized in the HPC community for delivering world-class performance across a wide spectrum of applications and benchmarks, and they are referenced regularly as the industry standard for performance and reliability. Further information on The Portland Group products can be found at www.pgroup.com, by calling sales at 503-682-2806, or by email to sales@pgroup.com.

About STMicroelectronics

STMicroelectronics is a global leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications with innovative semiconductor solutions. ST aims to be the undisputed leader in multimedia convergence and power applications leveraging its vast array of technologies, design expertise and combination of intellectual property portfolio, strategic partnerships and manufacturing strength. In 2008, the company's net revenues were $9.84 billion. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com.

-----

Source: STMicroelectronics

Article Tools

Share Options

(Digg, Technorati, more)

Subscribe

Subscribe to HPCwire

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Join the Discussion

You must be a registered user in order to comment on HPCwire stories.

Members enjoy:

	Access to Special Content, including Podcasts, Webcasts, and Whitepapers and more!
	Ability to take an active role in the discussions that are shaping the HPC technology discipline!
	Special offers available only to HPCwire members!

Become a Registered User Today!

Registered Users Log in Here to Comment

Email Address:	Password (case sensitive)

Remember me	Forgot Password?

RSS Feeds

Feeds by Topic

Feeds by Industry

Feeds by Content Type

Feature Articles

The Week in Review

C-DAC announces plans for a petaflop system; IBM researchers are working on vertical integration techniques to extend Moore's Law another 15 years. We recap those stories and more in our weekly wrapup.
Read More...

Moscow State University Supercomputer Has Petaflop Aspirations

The Moscow State University supercomputer, Lomonosov, has been selected for a high-performance makeover, with the goal of tripling its processing power to achieve petaflop-level performance in 2010. T-Platforms, who developed and manufactured the supercomputer, is the odds-on favorite to lead the project.
Read More...

Intel Ups Performance Ante with Westmere Server Chips

Right on schedule, Intel has launched its Xeon 5600 processors, codenamed "Westmere EP." The 5600 represents the 32nm sequel to the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem EP) for dual-socket servers. Intel is touting better performance and energy efficiency, along with new security features, as the big selling points of the new Xeons.
Read More...

Read more HPCwire features...

Top Headlines

Intel Partners See 'Easy' Upgrade Path With Xeon 5600 Chips

Mar 18 | ChannelWeb | Westmere parts already showing up in HPC machines. Read more...

AMD: OEMs primed for Opteron 6100s

Mar 17 | The Register | But what about the tier ones? Read more...

Arrival of the Desktop Supercomputer

Mar 17 | Cadalyst Magazine | A new generation of workstations is changing the nature of technical computing. Read more...

Scheduling HPC In The Cloud

Mar 17 | Linux Magazine | Latest iteration of Sun Grid Engine able to tap into Cloud. Read more...

Tailoring Medicine with Supercomputers

Mar 16 | Bio-IT World | Biotech firm builds genetic models from patient data. Read more...

Read more headlines...

Featured Whitepapers

Virtualization for Aggregation And The vSMP Architecture™

Jan 12 | | In-depth look at vSMP Foundation server virtualization technology, technical implementation, use cases and capabilities. The technical whitepaper provides an architectural overview and details on the three vSMP Foundation products: vSMP Foundation for SMP, vSMP Foundation for Cluster and vSMP Foundation for Cloud.

Copper Cable Technologies for High Performance Computing

Jan 18 | | This white paper discusses Gore’s copper cable assemblies, and how they continue to exceed the standards for providing reliable, cost-effective solutions for high-performance computer applications.

View the White Paper Library

Multimedia

Webcast: Virtualized Data Center Roundtable

Join this online panel discussion for live Q&A with leading industry experts, analysts, and end-users to discuss the latest innovations, best practices, barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits of server virtualization with a particular focus on today's real world solutions.

Webcast: Watch SC09 Birds of a Feather Video: Scalable Fault-Tolerant HPC Supercomputers

Learn about scalable fault-tolerant architectures and examples of energy efficient and scalable supercomputing clusters using dual QDR InfiniBand to combine capacity computing with network failover capabilities with the help of programming languages such as MPI and a robust Linux cluster management package.

Webcast: High Performance Computing for a Smarter Planet

LIVE@SCO9: The IBM team discusses new innovations in hardware, software and services that help clients better understand their workloads and get insight from their R&D efforts. Technology demonstrations include the soon-to-be-released Power7 HPC processor, the DCS990 system with 2.4 petabytes of storage, the xCAT management tool, secure HPC cloud computing and more. Winners of two HPCwire Readers' and Editors’ Choice Awards! Take the IBM virtual tour at SC09 or more information go online to: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/sc09.html