PGI News
The latest news on The Portland Group and PGI products.
Latest News from ST Microelectronics
The Portland Group Announces Availability of CUDA C/C++ Compiler for Multi-core x86
Portland, Ore.
December 14, 2011
New CUDA compiler enables parallel programmers to take full advantage of industry-standard CPUs from AMD and Intel
The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced that a performance-optimized PGI CUDA C/C++ compiler for multi-core x86 platforms (CUDA-x86) will ship with its PGI 2012 release due out in January 2012.
CUDA is NVIDIA's parallel computing architecture that enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of NVIDIA GPUs. Originally announced at the 2010 NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC), CUDA-x86 extends CUDA beyond the GPU into a system-wide programming model. The release of CUDA-x86 is a key step towards making the x86+GPU architecture an integrated parallel platform.
"CUDA-x86 is another key milepost in PGI’s roadmap for comprehensive support of programming of heterogeneous CPU+GPU systems," stated Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "Directive-based GPU programming with the PGI Accelerator compilers makes it extremely easy to get started programming GPUs. CUDA extensions allow programmers to write explicit parallel algorithms that are inherently massively scalable, and to dive as deep as they want to go to optimize for a specific platform. We expect both approaches to be critically important as accelerator-based systems become more and more pervasive."
"CUDA is the most popular GPU parallel-programming model in the world today, and developers need the flexibility to target multiple architectures with the same code,." said Sanford Russell, director of CUDA marketing at NVIDIA. ."The release of CUDA-x86 delivers the benefits of CUDA as a general-purpose programming model for high-performance parallel applications running in heterogeneous computing environments."
The PGI compiler for CUDA-x86 processes CUDA C/C++ as a native parallel-programming language for general-purpose multi-core x86 microprocessors from AMD and Intel. CUDA-x86 includes full support for NVIDIA's CUDA C/C++ language for GPUs, so programmers can recompile CUDA application source code for execution on an x86 host. Using CUDA-x86 developers can compile and optimize their CUDA applications to run on x86-based workstations, servers and clusters with or without an NVIDIA GPU accelerator. CUDA C/C++ applications compiled for x86 targets use multiple cores and the streaming SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) capabilities of Intel and AMD CPUs for parallel execution.
Highlights of PGI CUDA C/C++ compiler for multi-core x86 include:- Optimization and parallelization of native CUDA C/C++on x86 hosts.
- Low-overhead native parallel execution of CUDA C/C++ on x86 hosts.
- Executes each CUDA thread block using a single host core; automatically eliminates synchronization where possible.
- Support for the latest processors from AMD and Intel including support for the new AVX instructions.
- Automatically in-lines device kernel functions and translates chevron syntax to parallel/vector loops.
- Full support for NVIDIA's CUDA C/C++language for GPUs on x86 hosts.
- Full support for GPU texture memory.
- NVIDIA CUBLAS library support.
- Supports all PGI host optimizations for Intel/AMD.
In addition, PGI CUDA C/C++ for GPU devices is planned for release in mid 2012. At that time, using PGI Unified Binary™ technology, one binary will be able to use NVIDIA GPUs when present or default to using multi-core x86 if no GPU is present.
Performance Data
In a performance comparison of popular parallel programming models, PGI compiled the CUDA-x86 version of a LBM benchmark (part of the Parboil benchmark suite) and compared execution time to the same program parallelized using OpenMP. Program execution times for the different programming models are shown below:
| Benchmark | OpenMP Execution Time | CUDA Execution Time |
|---|---|---|
| LBM | 221 sec. | 221 sec. |
System: 4 core Intel i7 920 (2.67GHz), 12GB, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3
Additional performance information is available on the PGI website at http://www.pgroup.com/cuda-x86
Price and AvailabilityThe PGI CUDA C/C++compiler on multi-core x86 is part of the PGI 2012 release version 12.1 due out in January. It is available at no charge to PGI Accelerator C/C++ licensees with a current PGI Subscription service. PGI products are supported on the Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. A 15 day evaluation is available from The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com. Registration is required.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(781) 591-0354
nCore and The Portland Group Team to Produce Training for Programming GPU Accelerators
Portland, Ore.
November 15, 2011
The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), and nCore Design, a leading training and professional services provider, today announced their collaboration to offer a new 2-day training course on programming GPUs using the PGI Accelerator™ programming model.
The new course, titled NCT-500 PGI Accelerator Programming, has been developed by nCore working with PGI. The two-day intensive training course employs in-depth hands-on lectures and laboratories to provide attendees with comprehensive training on all aspects of programming GPUs with PGI’s directive-based programming model. The course is appropriate for engineers, scientists and other domain experts seeking to improve their GPU programming skills. An intermediate knowledge of C or Fortran programming, as well as knowledge of computer architectures and corresponding software development experience, are mandatory pre-requisites for this course.
"This course will provide attendees with the insights and skills necessary to have them up and running quickly porting their applications to GPUs," said Douglas Miles, Director of The Portland Group. "nCore brings tremendous expertise, along with a solid track record for providing quality training and professional service."
"GPU programming skills are in high demand and we are thrilled to be working closely with The Portland Group to produce this course based on PGI’s Accelerator Programming Model," said Ian Lintault, Managing Director of nCore. "This instructor-led course will be offered at client locations for groups of eight to 15. Our hands-on learning style assures students will be able to reinforce theory and concepts with practical exercises—a successful training model nCore has perfected."
The two-day course, NCT-500 PGI Accelerator Programming, is available from nCore starting November 14, 2011 and is priced at $1,895.00 per student. For more information, contact info@ncoredesign.com or ncoredesign.com/pgi/ for a booking.
About nCore Design
nCore Design is a global provider of training and professional services focused on multicore and many-core computing platforms. As the world leader in hands-on, instructor-led training courses, nCore helps clients increase software performance, throughput, and efficiency while reducing time-to-market.
nCore develops high performance solutions based on state-of-the-art parallel technologies using our specialized knowledge of applied software optimization techniques on modern computing platforms.
nCore works with local partners to deliver state-of-the-art solutions to government agencies, high-technology organizations, defense, research, biomedical and financial companies. nCore is a privately held company with offices in the US and Japan.
To learn more about nCore Design, call 971-228-0700 or access http://ncoredesign.com/
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(781) 591-0354
The Portland Group Adds Support for AMD’s "Bulldozer" Architecture
Portland, Ore.
October 26, 2011
PGI compilers now support Advanced Vector Instructions (AVX) for both AMD and Intel x64 CPUs
The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced its products now include support for the upcoming microprocessors from AMD (NYSE: AMD) based on their &quo;Bulldozer&quo; architecture.
The "Bulldozer" core architecture uses a flexible floating point unit called the Flex FP that can simultaneously execute two 128-bit commands or one 128-bit and one 256-bit command. The powerful floating point unit is included in the upcoming 16-core processors codenamed "Interlagos" intended for high-performance servers. Additionally, “Interlagos” delivers a rich mix of features targeting complicated, multi-threaded HPC environments.
"PGI is the compiler-of-choice for performance critical HPC applications, science and engineering ISC applications, and research community applications on AMD Opteron™ processor-based systems," said Margaret Lewis, director of Commercial Solutions and Software Strategy, AMD. "The combination of AMD’s Flex FP architecture with AVX and FMA4 together with PGI compilers will enable customers to fully exploit the power of AMD "Bulldozer" based processors."
Supercomputer maker Cray Inc., which includes PGI compilers with nearly all of its HPC systems worldwide, has indicated that some of its largest HPC customers will upgrade their existing systems to include 16-core "Interlagos" processors.
"PGI compilers, with their support and optimization for both the latest AMD Interlagos CPUs and many-core GPUs, are a key component of the Cray XE6 and Cray XK6 supercomputers,." said Barry Bolding, vice president of Cray's products division. ."PGI will play a critical role in helping Cray customers maximize the performance and value of these next-generation systems including AVX-enabled AMD CPUs."
PGI has been aggressively working to add support to its compilers for AMD’s “Bulldozer” architecture. A key feature of the offering is the addition of support for AMD’s variety of Advanced Vector Instructions (AVX), including AMD’s extended FMA4 instruction set. PGI has experience with AVX instructions, having supported Intel’s AVX instruction set, including FMA, since May 2011.
"This new processor technology coming to market has the potential to deliver a big performance boost and PGI is helping HPC programmers realize that potential by delivering today compilers and tools specifically designed to take advantage of this e latest generation of AMD processor-based systems," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "AMD plays a critical role in the HPC community and brings important new performance capabilities with its upcoming 16-core AVX-enabled processors. After extensive development, we are pleased with the early performance results our compilers have demonstrated with this new micro-architecture."
PGI compilers and tools are widely used in HPC development environments as more organizations seek cross-platform compatibility and productivity. A key advantage of the compilers' is PGI Unified Binary™ technology—the ability to generate a single executable file containing code sequences optimized for multiple processors from AMD and Intel. PGI Unified Binary technology enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and custom applications developers to take advantage of the latest processor innovations while treating x64 as a single platform, maximizing flexibility and eliminating the need to target and optimize for separate processors.
"The importance of the PGI Unified Binary is stronger than ever," added Miles. "AMD has taken a lead in including FMA4 instructions in its architecture that will affect binary compatibility and performance portability. PGI provides the easy-to-use bridge that enables programmers to efficiently and seamlessly move their code between AMD and Intel environments without having to worry about underlying instruction set differences."
Support for AMD's "Bulldozer" architecture is included in all PGI products effective immediately, and is available at no charge to licensees with a current PGI’s Subscription service. PGI products are supported on the Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. Evaluation copies are available from The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com. Registration is required.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(781) 591-0354
The Portland Group Updates Compilers to Deliver NVIDIA CUDA Architecture for x86 Platforms
Portland, Ore.
June 16, 2011
First release of new PGI C/C++ compilers lets CUDA developers
target industry standard servers from Intel and AMD
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) and a leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced that it is now shipping the PGI CUDA C and C++ compilers for systems based on the industry standard general-purpose 64-bit and 32-bit x86 architectures.
CUDA is NVIDIA's parallel computing architecture that enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of NVIDIA GPUs (graphics processing units). With PGI's new CUDA C/C++ compilers, significantly more developers can use the CUDA parallel programming model to optimize the performance of the critical parts of their code base, targeting servers and clusters with or without NVIDIA GPUs.
"With the addition of PGI CUDA C and C++ for x86, PGI further extends its comprehensive suite of tools for programming GPUs," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "It's another important element in our ongoing strategy of providing HPC programmers with a full range of options for optimizing compute-intensive applications and leveraging the latest technical innovations from AMD, Intel and NVIDIA."
"CUDA is the world's preeminent parallel programming model, supporting a range of open standards, architectures and programming languages," said Sanford Russell, director of CUDA marketing at NVIDIA. "Now for the first time, developers can run their CUDA apps on any x86 clusters."
When run on x86-based systems, PGI CUDA C/C++ applications perform parallel execution by using the multiple processor cores, and by using Streaming SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) Extensions (SSE), including the new AVX instructions available on the latest generation of x86 compatible CPUs from Intel and AMD.
PGI will roll out the x86 CUDA C/C++ compilers in three phases. Phase 1, available now, demonstrates the capabilities of the technology and allows developers to begin working with the compilers. Phase 2, scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2011, will include performance optimizations intended to extract maximum performance of CUDA programs running on the x86 target platform. Phase 3, planned for mid 2012, will include support for PGI Unified Binary(tm) technology-the ability to run one executable on both CPUs and GPUs. The PGI CUDA C/C++ compilers for x86 are included as part of the PGI Accelerator(tm) product line. All PGI Accelerator products support both CUDA programming and the PGI Accelerator high-level directive-based programming model targeting scientific and engineering-domain experts working in high-performance computing.
PGI Accelerator compilers are currently available for C99 and Fortran 2003. Both CUDA Fortran, a Fortran analog to NVIDIA CUDA C, and PGI CUDA C/C++ for x86 were developed by PGI in cooperation with NVIDIA. HPC programmers targeting applications for GPUs as well 64-bit x64 and 32-bit x86 processor based systems use PGI products widely. PGI products are supported on the Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
More information about PGI CUDA C/C++ for x86 is available online at www.pgroup.com/cuda-x86. 15 day evaluation copies are available as well. Registration is required.
For more information on NVIDIA CUDA, please visit www.nvidia.com/cuda.
All registered trademarks and marks are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(781) 591-0354
The Portland Group Announces PGI 2011 HPC Compilers and Development Tools
Portland, Ore.
February 17, 2011
New release includes support for latest Intel and AMD microprocessors, enhancements for programming GPUs
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics today announced availability of the 2011 release of the PGI® line of high-performance parallelizing compilers and development tools for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. PGI 2011 is the first general release to include full support for the PGI Accelerator programming model 1.2 specification on x64 processor-based systems incorporating NVIDIA CUDA1-enabled Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). In addition, the new PGI release includes a number of enhancements for multi-core x64 processor-based HPC systems
New features and enhancements include support for the new Advanced Vector Extensions to the x64 instruction set architecture (AVX) in upcoming Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Bulldozer CPUs, support for the Fortran 2003 language standard, enhancements in C++ performance through default fast exception handling and improved Boost C++ libraries support, OpenMP nested parallelism, new memory-hierarchy optimizations, debugger improvements including compact parallel register displays and tab-based sub-windows, and performance profiler enhancements to simplify browsing of multi-core profiles. The 2011 release also supports GPU performance profiling and benefits from revamped packaging for faster download and installation.
"PGI compilers are a key software component on Cray XE6 systems, providing our customers with tremendous value and performance," said Barry Bolding, vice president of Cray's products division. "PGI plays a pivotal role in the development of optimizing compiler technology for the latest HPC systems, and is an important collaborator with Cray in our efforts to develop and standardize high-level portable programming models applicable to current and future many-core and accelerator-enabled systems."
Major HPC system vendors including Cray, HP and IBM are all now delivering systems incorporating GPU accelerators. Fully utilizing the performance potential from these new systems requires most HPC developers to modify and re-compile their code. Several different models for programming GPUs have been proposed with NVIDIA's CUDA architecture and programming model achieving the widest adoption within the HPC community. In response to HPC market demand, NVIDIA and PGI cooperated to develop CUDA Fortran, a Fortran 2003 compiler and tool chain for programming of NVIDIA GPUs using Fortran in 2009. The two companies are now working together to develop the PGI CUDA C/C++ compiler that enables CUDA programs to port to any multi-core x64 processor-based system with or without NVIDIA GPU accelerators. This capability was demonstrated at SC10 last November, and will be rolled out to PGI users in phases as part of PGI 2011 software updates throughout the coming year.
"The continuing evolution of the PGI compilers to support the CUDA parallel architecture ensures that applications developed by more than 100,000 CUDA developers worldwide can be portable to all types of HPC systems," said Sanford Russell, director of CUDA marketing at NVIDIA. "This trend will clearly continue with the upcoming release of the CUDA-x86 compiler, enabling developers to compile and optimize their CUDA applications to run on x86-based systems."
PGI 2011 CUDA Fortran enhancements include CUDA Fortran module data sharing, a new capability to automate CUDA Fortran kernel generation, and optimized array slice assignments. New code generation and scheduling optimizations, including automatic loop unrolling, contribute to improved performance of both PGI Accelerator and CUDA Fortran GPU codes.
In addition to CUDA language extensions, PGI 2011 expands support for the high-level PGI Accelerator programming model, a set of compiler directives used to specify regions of code in standard Fortran and C programs that can be offloaded from a host CPU to an attached accelerator to enhance performance. PGI 2011 adds full PGI Accelerator 1.2 programming model support, including inter-procedural device resident data which enables larger portions of applications to be effectively accelerated, and the cache and unroll clauses that allow fine tuning of GPU kernels by the programmer. Concurrently, PGI has released the PGI Accelerator 1.3 programming model specification which includes a roadmap of planned future developments.
PGI 2011 supports the latest operating system releases including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Fedora 13, SLES 11 PS1 and Ubuntu 10.10.
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 2011 compilers are available from The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com. Registration is required.
All registered trademarks and marks are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
PGI to Develop Compiler Based on NVIDIA CUDA C Architecture for x86 Platforms
San Jose, California
September 21, 2010
PGI to Demonstrate New PGI CUDA C Compiler at SC10 Supercomputing Conference in November
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and the leading independent supplier of compilers for high-performance computing, today announced it is developing a CUDA C compiler targeting systems based on the industry-standard general-purpose 64- and 32-bit x86 architectures. The new PGI CUDA C compiler for x86 platforms will be demonstrated at the SC10 Supercomputing conference taking place in New Orleans, LA, November 13-15, 2010.
The NVIDIA CUDA architecture was developed to enable offloading computationally intensive kernels to massively parallel GPUs. Through function calls and language extensions, CUDA gives developers explicit control over the mapping of general-purpose computational kernels to GPUs, as well as the placement and movement of data between an x86 processor and the GPU.
The PGI CUDA C compiler for x86 platforms will allow developers using CUDA to compile and optimize CUDA applications to run on x86-based workstations, servers and clusters with or without an NVIDIA GPU accelerator. When run on x86-based systems without a GPU, PGI CUDA C applications will use multiple cores and the streaming SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) capabilities of Intel and AMD CPUs for parallel execution.
"CUDA C for x86 is a perfect complement to CUDA Fortran and PGI’s optimizing parallel Fortran and C compilers for multi-core x86," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "It’s another important element in our on-going strategy of providing HPC programmers with development tools that give PGI users a full range of options for optimizing compute-intensive applications, while allowing them to leverage the latest technical innovations from AMD, Intel and NVIDIA."
"In less than three years, CUDA has become the most widely used massively parallel programming model," said Sanford Russell, general manager of GPU Computing software at NVIDIA. "With the CUDA for x86 CPU compiler, PGI is responding to the need of developers who want to use a single parallel programming model to target many core GPUs and multi-core CPUs."
PGI offers two programming models for GPU accelerators. PGI Accelerator™ is a high-level directive-based programming model targeting scientific and engineering-domain experts working in high-performance computing. PGI Accelerator compilers are currently available for C99 and Fortran 95/2003. CUDA Fortran, a Fortran 95/2003 analog to NVIDIA CUDA C, was developed by PGI in cooperation with NVIDIA in 2009. CUDA Fortran allows expert programmers to control all aspect of GPU programming. In addition to programming GPU accelerators, PGI products are used widely by HPC programmers targeting applications for 64-bit x64 and 32-bit x86 processor based systems.
For more information on NVIDIA CUDA, please visit www.nvidia.com/cuda.
All registered trademarks and marks are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
The Portland Group Releases PGI Visual Fortran for Visual Studio 2010
Portland, Ore
July 13, 2010
PGI optimizing Fortran compiler for multi-core x64+GPU platforms includes bundled version of latest Windows IDE
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and the leading independent supplier of compilers for high-performance computing, today announced the general availability of PGI Visual Fortran® (PVF®) for Visual Studio 2010. PVF integrates PGI high-performance parallel Fortran compilers and tools with Microsoft Visual Studio to offer a high-productivity development solution to scientists and engineers upgrading to the latest 64-bit multi-core platforms running Microsoft Windows.
PGI compilers and tools are used widely by performance-oriented programmers on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows systems based on multi-core CPUs from Intel and AMD and incorporating GPU accelerators from NVIDIA. The new 10.6 version of the PGI 2010 release adds support for building Windows Fortran applications using the latest version of the popular Microsoft Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE)-Visual Studio 2010. Visual Studio is the most widely used IDE in the world. PVF tools and technologies, including an MPI/OpenMP parallel debugger, enable Visual Studio developers to efficiently develop High Performance Computing (HPC) applications for multi-core workstations and Windows HPC Server 2008 clusters. In addition, PGI Visual Fortran is available with support for programming NIVDIA GPU accelerators using directive-based PGI Accelerator Fortran or CUDA Fortran language extensions.
"With this latest release of PVF, PGI Fortran compilers and tools for multi-core processors and GPUs are available through Visual Studio 2010 to the large base of scientists and engineers developing for Windows," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "PVF's world-class performance and state-of-the art compiler technologies allow developers to leverage the wide array of new microprocessor and accelerator innovations coming out of Intel, AMD and NVIDIA together with the productivity advantages of Microsoft HPC technologies.""
PGI Visual Fortran is based on PGI's native OpenMP and auto-parallelizing compiler for the Fortran 95/2003 programming languages.
Key features include:
- Native Fortran 95/2003 Visual Studio project system;
- Fortran text editor extensions, intrinsic function tips and keyword completion;
- Integrated PGI-custom Fortran-capable debugger for debugging of single-thread, multi-thread and OpenMP parallel applications and MSMPI parallel applications running locally and on clusters;
- Microsoft Visual C++ interoperability and full support for Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005; and
- Optional support for the Visual Numerics IMSL Fortran Numerical Library and the Intel MKL Math Kernel Library.
In addition to comprehensive support for multi-core CPUs, PGI Visual Fortran also supports GPU accelerators. The PGI Accelerator programming model is a high-level implicit model similar to OpenMP for multi-core x64 systems. Using compiler directives, programmers can offload compute-intensive code regions from a host CPU to a GPU accelerator. Programs containing PGI Accelerator directives remain 100% standard-compliant and portable. PVF also supports CUDA Fortran language extensions. Defined in cooperation with NVIDIA, CUDA Fortran is an analog to the NVIDIA CUDA C compiler and gives expert programmers direct control of all aspects of GPGPU programming.
PVF includes PGI Unified Binary™ technology-the ability to generate a single executable file containing code sequences optimized for multiple processors from AMD, Intel and NVIDIA. PGI Unified Binary technology enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and custom applications developers to take advantage of the latest processor innovations while treating x64 and x64+GPU as a single platform, maximizing flexibility and eliminating the need to target and optimize for separate processors.
Price and Availability
PVF is distributed by electronic download and is available today. A single user academic license with GPU support is $249 USD. Commercial licenses start at $599 and $899 with GPU support. PVF is also available in multi-user network floating license configurations. All PGI products include a 30 day money-back guarantee. A 15 day free trial of PVF along with complete product and pricing information is available from The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com/pvf.
All registered trademarks and marks are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
Gaussian 09 Software Ported to 64-bit Mac OS X Using PGI Compilers
Portland, Ore
May 20, 2010
Cross-platform development tools from The Portland Group speed migration of popular computational chemistry application
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced that Gaussian, Inc, an ongoing collaboration of scientists and academic research groups throughout the world, used PGI compilers to port a version of its flagship Gaussian 09 product to Intel processor-based Macintosh computers running 64-bit versions of Mac OS X.
PGI develops and markets high-performance C/C++ and Fortran compilers and development tools that are widely used by engineers and scientists, and are designed to extract maximum performance from the latest multi-core processors from Intel and AMD. PGI Workstation™ compilers and tools enable building, debugging and profiling of 64-bit multi-core applications on the latest generation of Macs based on processors from Intel and running the Mac OS X operating system.
"A large percentage of academic and government HPC users rely on Macbooks as their mobile computing solution," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "Now that Gaussian 09 is available on Mac OS X as well as on Linux- and Windows-based systems, these HPC developers can use and work on Gaussian 09 anywhere, any time using optimizing PGI Fortran and C/C++ compilers & tools. The potential jump in productivity for these users is huge.""
Gaussian 09 is the latest in the Gaussian series of electronic structure programs. It is used by chemists, chemical engineers, biochemists, physicists and others for research in established and emerging areas of chemical interest. It can be used to study molecules and reactions under a wide range of conditions, including those that produce both stable species and compounds which are difficult or impossible to observe experimentally, such as short-lived intermediates and transition structures.
"Because of Gaussian's position as one of the preeminent electronic-structures software programs, over the years we have ported it to nearly every HPC platform using nearly every compiler and tool chain available," said Dr. Michael Frisch, president of Gaussian, Inc. "When we have a choice, we prefer PGI. We have found their dependability and performance to be consistently first rate."
PGI® compilers 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. PGI compilers and tools are used widely in high-performance computing, 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.
A free 15-day evaluation of PGI Workstation compilers & tools for Mac OS X is available for download at www.pgroup.com/support/downloads.php. Registration is required.
All registered trademarks and marks are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
PGI Compilers Now Available on the Cray CX Line of Supercomputers
Portland, Ore
May 11, 2010
PGI optimizing compilers deliver uniform high-performance computing development environment across entire Cray product line
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced an agreement under which Cray Inc will resell PGI® optimizing Fortran, C, and C++ compilers and development tools with the Cray CX1 line of deskside supercomputers and the recently announced Cray CX1000 line of rack mount supercomputers.
The PGI compilers and tools are used by scientists and engineers to create and run high-performance computing applications for complex modeling and simulations in weather forecasting, geophysical processing, aerodynamic simulation, structural analysis, automotive crash-testing, computational chemistry, and related fields. PGI compilers and tools support the latest 64-bit processors from AMD and Intel as well as CUDA-enabled GPU accelerators from NVIDIA running under both Linux and Microsoft Windows.
Cray has offered PGI compilers with its scalable supercomputers since 2004, and PGI compilers are installed on nearly all Cray XT systems worldwide. These same PGI compilers will now be available for purchase directly from Cray for use on its Intel® Xeon® processor-based Cray CX1 and CX1000 systems running either Linux or Windows HPC Server 2008. In addition, the PGI compilers for the Cray CX line will include the new PGI Accelerator features for NVIDIA GPUs, as well as the PGDBG® OpenMP/MPI graphical debugger and PGPROF® OpenMP/MPI graphical parallel performance profiling tools.
"Giving Cray's customers the flexibility and simplicity of purchasing our high-performance compilers directly from Cray for the Cray CX1 and Cray CX1000 systems is a big win for everyone," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "Together we can offer a uniform PGI compiler environment on the Cray CX machines running Linux or Windows up through the high-end scalable Cray XT machines and provide significant ease of migration and application upscaling benefits for existing and future Cray users."
First introduced in September 2008, the Cray CX1 line of deskside supercomputers are ideal for individuals and departments who want to harness the compute power of an integrated HPC cluster. Equipped with state-of-the-art visualization and storage capabilities and optionally configured with NVIDIA GPUs, the Cray CX1 system delivers performance leadership across a broad range of applications in a compact, deskside system. The Cray CX1000 system is the latest addition to Cray's CX line of supercomputing systems, scaling up to 128 nodes in a rack-mount configuration and offering HPC users the same integrated software stack as the Cray CX1 system with a simplified, common operating environment for either Windows or Linux along with several system management packages.
"We are excited to offer our Cray CX1 and Cray CX1000 customers access to the same compiler technology enjoyed by our Cray XT customers," said Ian Miller, senior vice president of the productivity solutions group and marketing at Cray. "In addition, PGI's ability to deliver technologies that leverage the GPU capabilities in the Cray CX line make it extremely relevant as more customers explore the acceleration capabilities in NVIDIA Tesla-based systems."
The PGI compiler suite includes the PGFORTRAN™, PGCC®, and PGC++™ compilers for the Fortran 95/03, C, and C++ programming languages, respectively. PGI compilers and tools feature full native support for OpenMP parallel programming extensions in Fortran, C, and C++, full support for 64-bit addressing, native integrated scalar and vector SSE and AVX code generation, directive-based x64+GPU programming, CUDA Fortran extensions for NVIDIA GPUs, and a bundled version of the ACML 4.4 library of highly optimized numeric functions for mathematical, engineering, scientific, and financial applications. PGI compilers are highly optimized for AMD and Intel CPUs, and NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs running Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. The PGDBG debugger and PGPROF performance profiler are MPI- and OpenMP-enabled, and available for cluster configurations.
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Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
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PGI Accelerator Compilers Enhanced for
NVIDIA GPUs Based on New Fermi Architecture
Portland, Ore
May 6, 2010
The Portland Group's CUDA Fortran and directive-based Fortran and C99 x64+GPU compilers now support the latest NVIDIA GPUs
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced that its entire line of PGI Accelerator™ compiler products, including its new PGI 10.4 release, now support the latest NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPU) based on the Fermi architecture. The NVIDIA Tesla 20-series supports many new features for the HPC space as well as support for version 3.0 of the NVIDIA CUDA toolkit. NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs are used to accelerate the performance of appropriate HPC applications beyond what is possible with the latest multi-core x64 host CPUs from Intel and AMD.
The latest version of PGI Accelerator compilers provide full support for CUDA Fortran on the latest NVIDIA GPU platforms and add support for allocatable device arrays within Fortran modules along with several API enhancements. CUDA Fortran, co-defined by NVIDIA and The Portland Group, is an extended version of the Fortran 2003 programming language that gives software developers direct control over all aspects of GPU programming. The PGI 10.4 release also enhances support for the PGI Accelerator directives-based programming model on Fermi platforms. The PGI Accelerator directives make GPU-software development easily approachable by application domain experts. Rather than porting and parallelizing entire programs or functions for the GPU, the PGI Accelerator directives allow incremental porting and parallelization of individual compute-intensive loops and code segments using standard-compliant and portable Fortran or C.
The PGI 10.4 release adds several ease-of-use features, including the use of PGI Unified Binary technology to build one version of an application that will run on any CUDA-enabled GPU. With PGI 10.4 compilers, programmers can automatically generate code that works and is optimized for both a Tesla C1060 GPU or the new Tesla C2050 GPU. In addition, they can take advantage of new GPU features including faster double-precision arithmetic, larger and configurable fast shared memory, and increased number of cores. Support for new NVIDIA GPU platforms in PGI 10.4 extends across Linux, Windows and MacOS, and within Microsoft Visual Studio via PGI Visual Fortran.
"With PGI 10.4, HPC users can create highly optimized heterogeneous multi-core applications for the latest CPUs from Intel and AMD in combination with the latest generation of GPUs from NVIDIA," said Douglas Miles, director The Portland Group. "Efficiently using all available host cores for certain parts of an application while accelerating other portions on GPUs is the key to squeezing maximum performance out of today's GPU-enabled workstations and cluster nodes. With Fermi's improvement in double-precision performance, we expect a big increase in the number and type of applications that benefit from GPU acceleration."
"A large part of the success of Tesla GPUs in the HPC space can be attributed to the quality of the development tools from NVIDIA and its partners," said Sanford Russell, general manager, GPU Computing at NVIDIA. "This announcement from PGI, building on the tools already in the market, is more evidence of the increasing momentum behind GPU computing in general and our CUDA architecture in particular."
The Portland Group compilers and tools for Fermi GPUs are part of the PGI 2010 release version 10.4 and are available now. A 15-day free trial is available from the PGI website. More detailed information about PGI compilers and tools is available online at www.pgroup.com
For more information on NVIDIA CUDA, please visit www.nvidia.com/cuda.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
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(212) 821 8959
PGI CUDA Fortran Now Available from The Portland Group
Portland, Ore
November 17, 2009
NVIDIA CUDA architecture now supported directly in the HPC industry-leading PGI Fortran compiler
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, today announced the general availability of its CUDA Fortran compiler for x64 and x86 processor-based systems running Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Developed in collaboration with NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the inventor of the graphics processing unit (GPU), PGI Release 2010 includes the first Fortran compiler compatible with the NVIDIA line of CUDA-enabled GPUs. A compiler is a software tool that translates applications from the high-level programming languages in which they are written by software developers into a binary form a computer can execute.
With developers taking advantage of the hundreds of cores and the relatively low cost of NVIDIA GPUs, programming to take advantage of the CUDA C compiler has become a popular means for accelerating the solution of complex computing problems. The PGI CUDA Fortran compiler is expected to accelerate GPU adoption even further in the High-Performance Computing (HPC) industry, where many important applications are written in Fortran. HPC is the field of technical computing engaged in the modeling and simulation of complex processes, such as ocean modeling, weather forecasting, environmental modeling, seismic analysis, bioinformatics and other areas.
"The GPU is ideally suited for the computationally intensive applications that define the HPC industry," said Andy Keane, general manager, Tesla business at NVIDIA. "The industry has been vocal in expressing its need for a CUDA-compatible Fortran option. NVIDIA customers can now build native CUDA Fortran applications using the widely-used and long-proven PGI Fortran compiler."
The CUDA Fortran compiler is compatible with all NVIDIA GPUs that include Compute Capability 1.3 or higher, which includes most NVIDIA Quadro Professional Graphics solutions and all NVIDIA Tesla GPU Computing solutions. Developers are invited to download the PGI CUDA Fortran compiler from The Portland Group website at www.pgroup.com/support/downloads.php. A 15-day trial license is available at no charge. In an effort to simplify adoption, NVIDIA has granted PGI rights to redistribute the relevant components of the CUDA Software Development Kit (SDK) as part of the PGI CUDA Fortran installation package.
PGI® products are used widely in high-performance computing (HPC). PGI compilers 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. More information on the CUDA Fortran compiler is available directly from The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com/cudafortran.
GPU computing forums for news, discussion and programming tips are available at forums.nvidia.com and www.pgroup.com/userforum.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
PGI Release 2010 Enables Scientists and Engineers
to Harness the Computational Power of GPUs
Portland, Ore
November 12, 2009
Latest compilers from The Portland Group extend support for the PGI Accelerator Programming Model and PGI CUDA Fortran
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, November 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% 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, 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.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
PGI Visual Fortran 9.0 Adds Support for MPI Debugging on
Windows HPC Server 2008 Clusters
Portland, Ore
August 8, 2009
Latest version allows users to build, launch and debug from within Microsoft Visual Studio
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced the general availability of PGI Visual Fortran® (PVF®) Release 9.0 for Windows workstations, servers and clusters. PVF 9.0 is the first general release to include support for the building, launching and debugging of Microsoft MPI (MSMPI) Fortran applications from within the Microsoft Visual Studio integrated development environment.
PVF augments the Visual Studio debugger by adding a Fortran language specific custom debug engine. The PVF debug engine supports debugging of single and multi-thread, OpenMP, multi-thread MSMPI and hybrid MSMPI+OpenMP Fortran applications. It enables debugging of 64-bit or 32-bit applications using source code or assembly code, and provides full access to the registers and hardware state of the processors. Other new multi-process MSMPI capabilities in PVF 9.0 include Visual Studio property pages for configuring compile-time options, launching applications either locally on a workstation or on a distributed-memory Windows HPC Server 2008 cluster system, and debugging of programs running either locally or on a cluster.
"PVF 9.0 is a big step forward in ease-of-use for HPC Fortran programmers porting applications to or developing applications for Windows workstations, servers and clusters," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "For Windows Fortran users looking to leverage the power of Windows HPC Server 2008 clusters, the ability to cover all aspects of MPI and parallel Fortran application development from within the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE can simplify their work considerably."
"The majority of HPC applications are still written in Fortran and parallelized using MPI and OpenMP," said Vince Mendillo, Director, Technical Computing Marketing, Microsoft. "By including MSMPI job launch and debugging support within PGI Visual Fortran, PGI has further enhanced the Windows HPC Server 2008 ecosystem and simplified porting of HPC applications to Windows clusters."
Additional new features in PVF 9.0 include support for Intel Core i7 (Nehalem) and six-core AMD Opteron (Istanbul) processors, several incremental Fortran 2003 features, improvements in serial debugging and disassembly speed, and completely updated documentation and online help. PGI Visual Fortran is compatible with both the current version of Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2008, and the previous version, Visual Studio 2005.
PGI Release 9.0 is the first general release to include support for the high-level PGI Accelerator™ programming model on x64 processor-based Linux systems incorporating NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs. Announced last June, the PGI Release 9.0 line of high-performance parallelizing compilers and development tools for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows is now available.
Further information on The Portland Group products, including PGI® Release 9.0, can be found at www.pgroup.com, by calling Sales at (503) 682-2806, or by email to sales@pgroup.com.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
PGI and NVIDIA Team To Deliver CUDA Fortran Compiler
Portland, Ore
June 23, 2009
Fortran support for NVIDIA CUDA GPUs to be incorporated into a new version of the PGI Fortran compiler
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced an agreement with NVIDIA under which the two companies plan to develop new Fortran language support for CUDA GPUs.
The NVIDIA® CUDA™ architecture allows developers to offload computationally intensive kernels to the massively parallel GPU. Through function calls and language extensions, CUDA gives developers explicit control over the mapping of general-purpose computational kernels to GPUs as well as placement and movement of data between the x64 processor and the GPU. The NVIDIA CUDA C compiler already provides this capability to C programmers. The CUDA Fortran compiler will provide this same level of control and optimization in a native Fortran environment from PGI.
"Fortran support for CUDA GPUs is a perfect complement to our existing roadmap for the PGI Accelerator Fortran and C compilers," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "It enables interoperability of PGI Fortran and CUDA C and gives PGI users a full range of options in porting and optimizing Fortran applications to leverage the power of CUDA-enabled NVIDIA GPUs."
"The GPU computing developer community has made it clear there is a need and demand for a production-quality Fortran solution on the GPU," said Andy Keane, general manager, Tesla GPU Computing Solutions, NVIDIA. "With their large base of Fortran developers for x64 processor-based HPC systems, PGI provides a perfect bridge for migration of production science and engineering codes from existing platforms to NVIDIA Tesla GPUs."
The Portland Group and NVIDIA will release the Fortran language specification for CUDA GPUs at the International Conference on Supercomputing in Hamburg, Germany this week. The CUDA Fortran compiler will be added to a production release of the PGI Fortran compilers scheduled for availability in November 2009. More detailed information about PGI compilers and tools is available online at www.pgroup.com.
For more information on NVIDIA CUDA, please visit www.nvidia.com/cuda.
All registered trademarks and marks are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959