PGI News
The latest news on The Portland Group and PGI® products.
Latest News from ST Microelectronics
The Portland Group and AMD Ink Agreement to Collaborate on
Accelerator Compiler Technology
Austin, TX
November 18, 2008
Cooperation based around PGI's x64+GPU compiler technology and AMD
FireStream™ compute accelerators with an eye toward AMD Fusion
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced it has entered into an agreement with AMD to cooperate on the development of compiler technology for AMD FireStream™ compute accelerators. As part of the agreement, PGI and AMD will investigate and develop technology to enable PGI® Fortran and C compilers to generate code directly for AMD FireStream boards and to generate heterogeneous x64+GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) executables that enable automatic utilization of AMD FireStream products if present in a system.
The Portland Group recently delivered a technology preview of the industry's first standard Fortran and C compilers that automatically offload computations from an x64 host program to a GPU. Until now, C and C++ developers targeting GPU accelerators have had to rely on language extensions or library-based solutions, and use of GPUs from Fortran applications has been extremely limited. The PGI x64+GPU programming model enables programmers to accelerate applications simply by adding portable compiler directives, treated as comments by other compilers, to existing standard-compliant Fortran and C programs and recompiling with appropriate compiler options. This gives individual developers the power to incrementally use accelerator technology where appropriate in large existing applications, eliminating the need for expensive and difficult corporate-level platform migration or acquisition decisions.
"Until now, industry CIO's and government and university lab directors have encountered difficult decisions when evaluating accelerator technologies," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "Which accelerators do I choose? How do I retrain developers to use accelerators? How much will I have to invest in new software technologies? Working together with AMD, we will work to make FireStream compute accelerators easily accessible to mainstream C and Fortran developers and unlock the power of these devices using PGI compilers that are already in use at most of the significant HPC centers and sites."
"We applaud The Portland Group for giving developers advanced, yet simplified tools for fast, easy creation of GPU accelerated applications," said Patricia Harrell, director of Stream Computing at AMD. "The Portland Group clearly understands the needs of today’s HPC developers, and their efforts are instrumental in driving GPU compute acceleration into the mainstream. We look forward to working with PGI to help ensure their Fortran and C compilers can take full advantage of the over 1.2 teraFLOPS of single-precision, and over 240 gigaFLOPS of double-precision performance capabilities of the AMD FireStream 9270 compute accelerators."
PGI develops and markets high-performance C/C++ and Fortran compilers and development tools that are widely used by engineers 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 and tools are designed to extract maximum performance from the latest multi-core x64 processors, including the recently announced 45 nanometer Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors from AMD. 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.
Key advantages of PGI compilers and tools can be found on The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com/about/why_PGI.htm . A free 15-day evaluation of PGI Workstation compilers and tools 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
The Portland Group Announces PGI 8.0 Optimizing Compilers & Tools
for Multi-core x64 Processors
Portland, OR
November 17, 2008
Latest PGI release supports OpenMP 3.0 on Linux, Windows and MacOS;
includes heterogeneous x64+GPU compiler technology preview
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, today announced the general availability of the PGI® Release 8.0 line of high-performance compilers and development tools for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. PGI Release 8.0 includes full support for the recently announced OpenMP 3.0 multi-core parallel programming standard in Fortran and C across all supported platforms. The new release also adds support for building and debugging of OpenMPI applications on both Linux and MacOS, complementing existing MPI capabilities on Linux and Windows clusters. PGI 8.0 users can now develop and deploy multi-core and parallel applications on any of the major desktop or cluster operating systems using identical PGI compilers, the latest OpenMP features, MPI implementation of choice and bundled OpenMP/MPI-capable debugging and profiling tools. In a significant new development, PGI Release 8.0 also marks The Portland Group's entry into the field of accelerated computing with provisional support for automatic offloading of parallel computations from x64 host processors to CUDA-enabled GPUs from NVIDIA.
"Together with PGI Unified Binary technology, which enables developers to leverage the latest CPU innovations from both AMD and Intel while treating x64 processors as a single platform, the new features in PGI 8.0 maximize flexibility and independence for HPC users and large multi-platform supercomputing centers," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group.
New Performance Analysis Tools
In addition to building on a compiler and tools product line that now includes all best practices HPC and multi-core programming technologies, the PGI 8.0 compilers include an all-new capability to automatically analyze source code, produce an extensive database describing performance optimizations that are possible or inhibited, and provide advice for modifying the source code to take advantage of the possible optimizations. With Release 8.0, PGI has standardized the organization and interface to this data through the Common Compiler Feedback Format (CCFF). PGI is publishing the CCFF specification and making access to it freely available in an effort to improve the utility and interoperability of PGI, third-party and research-community software tuning tools. More information on CCFF is available from the PGI website at http://www.pgroup.com/ccff.
PGI's PGPROF® 8.0 performance profiler displays CCFF data coupled with user source code in a logical, compact and intuitive graphical user interface (GUI). A command-line interface is also supported. Programmers can quickly and easily identify code segments that are already well-structured, as well as those that can be restructured to improve performance. In addition to identifying sections of an application that consume most of the compute time or system resources, PGPROF provides developers with specific actionable performance optimization feedback about their source code. The data, presented on a per-thread and/or per-process basis, simplifies performance tuning by identifying:
- Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) vector loops, and why vectorization is inhibited on non-vector loops
- Loops auto-parallelized for multi-core, and why parallelization is inhibited on serial loops
- Loops that are candidates for OpenMP parallelization
- Compute intensity of loops, and candidates for offloading to a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) or accelerator
- Loops with very small or very large iteration counts, and how they can be modified to maximize performance for SSE and the cache-based memory hierarch
- Data prefetching, and opportunities for prefetch tuning using directives and pragmas
In addition to these detailed analyses, PGPROF also includes overall program level analyses including information about in-lined functions and subroutines and information about how each file was compiled, comprehensive system configuration information and many other performance-critical characteristics of Fortran, C and C++ source code. Unlike traditional performance tuning tools which only report on and help tune performance for a specific type of processor or system, or focus solely on parallelization, the PGI 8.0 compilers and tools provide developers with feedback and insight on how to restructure loops and algorithms to enhance performance on any modern multi-core x64 CPU or GPU accelerator.
"Parallelism does not equate to performance," said Michael Wolfe, compiler engineer, The Portland Group. "The focus needs to be not on parallelism, but on performance, where parallelism is one of the tools to get it."
Provisional GPU Support
PGI Release 8.0 also includes a technology preview of the industry's first Fortran and C compilers that automatically offload computations from an x64 host program to a GPU. Until now, C and C++ developers targeting GPU accelerators have had to rely on language extensions to their programs. Use of GPUs from Fortran applications has been extremely limited. x64+GPU programmers have been required to program at a detailed level including a need to understand and specify data usage information and manually construct sequences of calls to manage all movement of data between the x64 host and GPU. Using the provisional support in PGI Release 8.0, programmers can accelerate Linux applications on x64+GPU platforms by adding OpenMP-like compiler directives to existing high-level standard-compliant Fortran and C programs and then recompiling with appropriate compiler options.
"PGI is joining the increasing number of software publishers offering innovative approaches to harnessing the power of NVIDIA GPUs by leveraging the CUDA development environment," said Andy Keane, general manager, Tesla computing solutions, NVIDIA. "With their 20 year history and track record of success, we expect PGI's offering will open the door for members of the HPC community to begin incrementally porting large legacy production science and engineering codes to take full advantage of NVIDIA Tesla accelerators."
The PGI 8.0 x64+GPU compilers automatically analyze whole program structure and data, split portions of the application between the x64 CPU and GPU as specified by user directives, and define and generate an optimized mapping of loops to automatically use the parallel cores, hardware threading capabilities and SIMD vector capabilities of modern GPUs. In addition to directives and pragmas that specify regions of code or functions to be accelerated, the PGI Fortran and C compilers support user directives that give the programmer fine-grained control over the mapping of loops, allocation of memory, and optimization for the GPU memory hierarchy. The PGI compilers generate unified x64+GPU object files and executables that manage all movement of data to/from the GPU device while leveraging all existing host-side utilities—linker, librarians, makefiles—and require no changes to the existing standard HPC Linux/x64 programming environment.
Other significant new features included in PGI Release 8.0 are support for OpenMP parallel and local OpenMPI parallel debugging in Mac OS X, new simplified licensing setup on Microsoft Windows, support for Microsoft HPC Server 2008 clusters and support for the latest processors from AMD and Intel.
Evaluation copies of the new PGI 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
The Portland Group Adds IMSL Fortran Numerical Library for Windows
Portland, OR
March 25, 2008
Popular Visual Numerics library now available as an option with
PGI multi-core optimizing parallel Fortran compilers
The Portland Group®,a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) and a leading supplier of compilers and development tools for High-Performance Computing, today announced that the IMSL® Fortran Numerical Library from Visual Numerics®, Inc. is available from The Portland Group for PGI's line of multi-core optimizing parallel Fortran compilers running under the Microsoft Windows operating systems.
The IMSL Fortran Library is a comprehensive set of popular mathematical and statistical functions. Software developers can use the pre-written functions included within the library as building blocks in their software applications. This library frees programmers from the necessity of developing their own equivalent functions. Both the library and numerical algorithms within it have a reputation for quality and performance across an extensive range of compilers and operating system environments.
"The IMSL Fortran Library is one of the most widely used math libraries for technical computing applications on Windows and is very popular with our Linux customers," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "We've been working with Visual Numerics to bring this valuable resource to PGI's complete line of Windows compilers including support on native Windows, the Windows Subsystem for Unix Applications (SUA), and within applications built using PGI Visual Fortran. "
"We are pleased to be working closely with The Portland Group to bring the IMSL Fortran Library to their latest generation of Windows Fortran compilers," said Tim Leite, Director of Corporate Development at Visual Numerics. "PGI compilers are popular in technical and high-performance computing, a key target market segment for the IMSL Libraries. With this new product we extend to PGI and HPC developers on Windows the same high standards for quality and reliability that IMSL Libraries are known for worldwide. "
PGI compilers and tools are used predominantly on 64-bit and 32-bit Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows workstations, servers, and clusters based on microprocessors from AMD and Intel. The Portland Group's flagship product suite, PGI Workstation, includes compilers and tools for building, debugging and profiling parallel 64-bit and 32-bit Fortran, C and C++ applications within a UNIX- and Linux- compatible development environment. Key compiler features include automatic and user-directed parallelization and optimizations for extracting maximum performance from the new generation of multi-core processors. In addition to extensive UNIX migration features, the PGI Visual Fortran compiler is available fully integrated with Microsoft's Visual Studio development environment. The key advantages of PGI compilers and tools can be found on The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com/about/why_pgi.htm. A trial version of PGI compilers is available for download at www.pgroup.com/support/downloads.php . Registration is required.
The IMSL Numerical Libraries have been the cornerstone of high- performance and deep computing as well as predictive analytics applications in science, technical and business environments for well over three decades. These embeddable mathematical and statistical algorithms, written in C, C#, Java™, and Fortran, are used in a broad range of applications. The IMSL Libraries are regarded as the most sophisticated, flexible, scalable and highly accessible technology available for numerical analysis in the most important mainstream programming environments in use today.
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 CDK Cluster Development Kit for Windows
Now Available From The Portland Group
Portland, OR
January 30, 2008
PGI brings powerful suite of parallel compilers and programming
tools to popular Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leader in compilers and development tools for high-performance computing, today announced the general availability of its PGI CDK® Cluster Development Kit® for Microsoft Windows Computer Cluster Server 2003 (CCS). The PGI CDK for Windows is a suite of parallel Fortran, C, and C++ compilers and development tools specifically optimized for Windows CCS. PGI compilers and tools are used widely in high- performance computing (HPC), the field of technical computing engaged in the modeling and simulation of ocean modeling, weather forecasting, seismic analysis, crash simulation and other complex processes.
Until now, the PGI CDK has been available only for Linux-based clusters based on 32-bit and 64-bit microprocessors from AMD and Intel. The Portland Group extends to these same platforms support for the Microsoft 64-bit Compute Cluster Server operating systems with this release.
"With an accelerating trend towards platform diversification in the HPC market, PGI remains committed to providing HPC developers with the best performance on their choice of platform," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "The HPC community has recognized PGI compilers for delivering world-class performance across a wide spectrum of applications and benchmarks running on workstations and servers based on both major x64 processors, and the introduction of PGI CDK for Windows CCS gives the HPC community another option for cluster programming."
"We are excited to partner with PGI to deliver both world-class performance and ease-of-use for HPC clusters," said Shawn Hansen, director of HPC marketing division at Microsoft. "Now that PGI's market leading tools are available cross-platform, customers can accelerate their productivity by combining their tuned developer environments with the ease-of-use of the Windows HPC platform."
The PGI CDK Cluster Development Kit includes the PGF77®, PGF95™, PGCC®, and PGC++® compilers for the FORTRAN 77, Fortran 95, C, and C++ programming languages, respectively. All PGI compilers 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 code generation; and a bundled version of the ACML, a highly optimized library of numeric functions for mathematical, engineering, scientific, and financial applications.
In addition, PGI CDK includes PBDBG®, an OpenMP and MPI parallel symbolic debugger and PGPROF®, an OpenMP and MPI parallel graphical performance profiler. Both tools include support for MSMPI, the Windows implementation of the de facto standard Message Passing Interface commonly used for running programs in parallel on clusters. MSMPI is included with Windows CCS. PGDBG and PGPROF provide full-featured graphical user interfaces that are fully compatible with the Linux versions, creating an environment that is ideal for programmers porting applications from Linux to Windows.
Included in the PGI CDK for Windows are network floating-license versions of PGI's compilers and tools designed to run under a number of different Windows programming environments including:
- Native, under 64-bit or 32-bit Windows CCS, using a UNIX-like shell command interface that is compatible with UNIX/Linux environments, the traditional operating system of choice in the HPC field.
- Windows Subsystem for UNIX-based applications (SUA). SUA is a source-code compatible subsystem for compiling and running UNIX-based applications on a computer running a Windows Server-class operating system including Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.
- Visual Studio 2005. Visual Studio is the preeminent graphical software development environment for Windows.
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 and Tools from The Portland Group
Portland, OR
October 29, 2007
64-bit high-performance parallel Fortran, C and C++ Tools support Mac OS X Leopard
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) and leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced the general availability of its PGI(r) Workstation suite of 64-bit high-performance parallel compilers and tools for Intel processor-based Macs running Mac OS X, including the new fully 64-bit enabled Mac OS X Leopard.
PGI develops and markets high-performance C/C++ and Fortran compilers and development tools that are popular and widely used by engineers and scientists in high-performance technical computing (HPTC). Technical computing involves the modeling and simulation of complex processes, such as ocean modeling, weather forecasting, seismic analysis, bioinformatics and other areas. 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 designed to extract maximum performance from the latest multi-core processors from Intel and AMD.
"PGI is committed to supporting all popular high-performance computing platforms. We see the Intel processor-based Macs gaining momentum among our traditional customer base of scientists and engineers," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "By adding Mac OS X support alongside our existing support for Linux and Windows, HPC developers can now target all the primary platforms using a single, uniform software development environment."
According to Net Applications operating system market share data for computers using the Internet (http://marketshare.hitslink.com), for the year ending 31 August 2007, Mac OS X market share was up over 42%, now comprising 6.2% of the market. Shares for the same period for Microsoft Windows Vista and Linux were 6.3% and 0.8% respectively. Windows XP remains the operating system of choice for most Internet users with over an 80% market share. The Mac's gains are largely the result of new users adopting the Intel processor-based systems as the market share for the older PowerPC processor-based platform fell by less than 0.4% over the period.
"Leopard delivers full native 64-bit support to enable applications to take complete advantage of 64-bit processing while still running side by side with existing 32 bit applications and drivers," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "With a growing base of HPC tools like PGI Workstation now available, more scientists and engineers are choosing the Mac platform."
Today, PGI compilers and tools are used predominantly on 64-bit and 32-bit Linux and Microsoft Windows workstations, servers, and clusters based on microprocessors from AMD and Intel. The Portland Group's flagship product suite, PGI Workstation, includes compiler and tools for building, debugging and profiling 64-bit and 32-bit Fortran, C and C++ applications. Key compiler features include automatic and user-directed parallelization and optimizations for extracting maximum performance from the new generation of multi-core processors. The key advantages of PGI compilers and tools can be found on The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com/about/why_pgi.htm. The free trial version PGI Workstation for Mac OS X is available for download at www.pgroup.com/support/downloads.php. Trial versions of PGI compilers for Linux and Windows are available at the same address. 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
The Portland Group Announces PGI Release 7.1 of its
Optimizing Compilers for Multi-core 64-bit Processors
Portland, OR
October 25, 2007
Targeting CPUs with four or more cores, latest PGI release brings MPI debugging and profiling to the Linux desktop and delivers record-setting x64 benchmark performance
on new Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processors
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), today announced the general availability of Release 7.1 of its suite of Fortran, C and C++ compilers and development tools. PGI® compilers and tools are used widely in high-performance computing (HPC), the field of technical computing engaged in the modeling and simulation of complex phenomena, such as ocean modeling, weather forecasting, seismic analysis, bioinformatics and other areas. PGI compilers, which convert software programs into the binary instructions that a computer can 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.
The latest PGI 7.1 compilers and tools deliver all existing best-practices software components for developing highly efficient parallel applications to multi-core Linux desktops. For the past 10 years, applications for parallel supercomputers have been developed almost exclusively using the de facto standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) programming model or OpenMP directive-based extensions to Fortran, C and C++. HPC developers now face the daunting task of adapting these MPI and OpenMP applications to run effectively on clusters of multi-core CPUs, while general-purpose developers face the substantial challenge of adapting serial legacy applications to effectively use multiple cores. The coming wave of multi-core processors will require developers to leverage the existing knowledge base of software development from HPC.
PGI 7.1 delivers comprehensive support for both OpenMP and MPI, including graphical OpenMP and MPI debugging and profiling tools, in all PGI product configurations for Linux. This includes PGI's lowest-cost configuration: PGI C/C++ Workstation for a single academic user, which is priced at $299 USD for a permanent license. Until now, such a comprehensive parallel-programming environment was available only on dedicated HPC or cluster systems at a cost of thousands of dollars per seat. PGI's latest offering makes all of these capabilities plus state-of the-art automatic parallelization available and affordable to virtually any developer with a need to adapt applications to run in parallel on multi-core processors.
"We continue to invest heavily in delivering performance-oriented compilers and tools to our core science and engineering users while making a concerted effort to enable parallel application development by more general-purpose developers," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "With Release 7.1, we are delivering our fastest Fortran compiler yet, and also C and C++ compilers that show performance gains of more than 10% versus PGI 7.0 on standard benchmarks running on the latest multi-core processors. We are taking a practical approach to helping our customers cross the multi-core divide by delivering increasingly better compile-and-go performance as part of a complete parallel programming toolkit for systems ranging from dual- or quad-core laptops and desktops to the world's fastest supercomputers."
"HP and its customers value PGI's practical approach to optimizing software for multi-core processors," said Ed Turkel, Manager of Product Marketing for High Performance Computing at HP. "HP is delighted to have PGI participate in our Multi-core Optimization Program. We recognize the significant value that PGI's comprehensive set of processor-independent compilers and tools brings to our joint customers in tuning applications on HP's servers and clusters using the latest multi-core processors from both AMD and Intel."
The PGI 7.1 compilers have enabled AMD to publish SPECfp_rate_base2006 performance results on Quad-Core AMD Opteron 2.5 Ghz processors that are over 27% faster than the best published performance results on the same benchmark running on Intel Xeon X5365 Quad Core 3.0 Ghz processors using Intel 10.1 compilers.* "With Release 7.1, PGI has made a significant advance in bringing the performance of their C and C++ compilers up to the same high level that we have come to expect from their Fortran compilers," said Michael Goddard, senior director, AMD Performance Center of Excellence. "PGI and AMD have been cooperating throughout 2007 to ensure PGI compilers are highly tuned for the new micro-architecture and features of AMD's latest Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors."
PGI Release 7.1 also marks the introduction of two new products: optimizing PGI compilers and tools for Intel processor-based Apple Macintosh systems, and a compiler and tools suite for Windows that includes the first commercially available debugger to support debugging of MSMPI applications on Microsoft's flagship HPC product, Windows Compute Cluster Server (CCS). PGI 7.1 includes numerous under-the-hood compiler optimizations, and it features improved support for what already is the most comprehensive developer-tools offering for migration of UNIX applications to AMD and Intel processor-based systems. PGI is unique in offering developers the option of migrating from UNIX to Linux or to Windows x64 using either a UNIX-like development environment on native Windows or through Microsoft's Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications environment. PGI 7.1 for Windows platforms includes the ability to use all of the PGI compilers and tools on both native Windows and from within Windows SUA (Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications).
All PGI products include the ability to generate PGI Unified Binary(tm) executable files. The PGI Unified Binary enables developers to leverage the latest processor innovations from both AMD and Intel while treating x64 as a single platform, maximizing flexibility and eliminating the need to target and optimize for two separate processors. Evaluation copies of the new PGI 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.
* SPEC® and the benchmark name SPECfp® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results stated above reflect results published on www.spec.org as of October 11, 2007. The comparison presented above is based on the best published performance on competing AMD and Intel Quad-Core platforms. Complete results for the referenced AMD processors are at http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2007q4/cpu2006-20070908-01998.html, and for the referenced Intel processors at http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2007q3/cpu2006-20070821-01886.html.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
PGI Compilers Target Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processors
Portland, OR
August 7, 2007
Optimizing multi-core development tools from The Portland Group enable migration and tuning of applications for Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors
The Portland Group®, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced that PGI compilers and development tools now generate code targeted at Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors, code-named "Barcelona". PGI and AMD are cooperating to provide these compilers to independent software vendors and customers interested in migrating and tuning applications for AMD's upcoming native quad-core processor.
PGI develops and markets high-performance parallel C/C++ and Fortran compilers and application debugging and performance profiling tools that are widely used by engineers and scientists in high-performance technical computing (HPTC). PGI compilers and tools are designed to extract maximum performance from the latest multi-core processors from both AMD and Intel. All PGI compilers support generation of PGI Unified Binary executables, which enables developers to leverage the latest processor innovations from both AMD and Intel while treating x64 as a single platform, maximizing flexibility and eliminating the need to target and optimize for two separate processor platforms.
"The comprehensive effort by AMD to engage with vendors like PGI and supply us with all the information and support we need to effectively optimize for their forthcoming processors has been outstanding," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "The performance tuning we are building in to the PGI compilers in support of Quad-core AMD Opteron will show significant benefits for PGI's core science and engineering customers and hopefully for the wider AMD developer community as well."
Built on AMD's revolutionary Direct Connect Architecture which improves overall system performance and efficiency by eliminating bottlenecks inherent in traditional front-side bus architectures, the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor will also introduce several major enhancements that the PGI compilers leverage for improved compile-and-go performance: smart code selection to use the full 128-bit wide floating-point units and avoid merge dependencies; low-overhead inline parallel regions to extend efficient auto-parallelization from dual-core to quad-core; alignment of hot loops to take advantage of the expanded 32 byte code fetch window; highly-optimized bit and string library intrinsics that leverage new ABM and SSE4a instructions; instruction scheduling and selection for improved latency and bandwidth; modified software pre-fetching to complement the Level-1 data cache prefetch hardware; and memory hierarchy optimizations to reduce memory access-related conflicts between cores and to improve throughput efficiency.
"As the shift towards multi-core processor environments accelerates, both PGI and AMD recognize the need for better tools that will help the developer community easily and efficiently leverage the computing performance benefits of dual- and quad-core processors," said Earl Stahl, vice president of software development, AMD (NYSE: AMD). "The new PGI compilers and development tools will enable developers to optimize their applications for Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, allowing them to exploit the significant core and cache enhancements and unprecedented levels of efficiency made possible through AMD's native design, and ultimately deliver greater levels of performance and efficiency for end-users."
Software developers can generate code targeted at Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors using the latest version 7.0-7 release of the PGI compilers and tools. Version 7.1 of the PGI compilers and tools, scheduled for general availability in Fall 2007, will include additional features and optimizations for Quad-Core AMD Opteron.
All registered trademarks and marks are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
CD-adapco Adopts PGI Unified Binary from The Portland Group
Portland, OR
May 24, 2007
STAR-CD, built with PGI compilers, delivers optimum performance across multiple x64 platforms
The Portland Group™ (PGI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced that CD-adapco, a world leader in full-spectrum flow, thermal, and stress simulation software, is building the latest version of their flagship product STAR-CD 4.0 using PGI Unified Binary™ technology.
The PGI Unified Binary is a single x64 binary executable containing code sequences optimized for both AMD and Intel x64 processors ensuring correct function and optimum performance regardless of the type of x64 processor on which the application is deployed. The PGI Unified Binary enables developers like CD-adapco to leverage the latest processor innovations from both AMD and Intel while treating x64 as a single platform, maximizing flexibility and eliminating the need to target and optimize for two separate processor platforms. PGI Unified Binary technology has been included with all PGI compiler products since version 6.1.
"We are seeing a growing acceptance of the PGI Unified Binary by ISVs like CD-adapco as they come to appreciate its unique advantages. The ability to deploy a single executable that is optimized for both x64 platforms can help reduce the time and cost required to develop, test and deploy a complex high-end application like STAR-CD," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "The PGI Unified Binary also has obvious advantages for application end-users who are increasingly working in environments containing a variety of types of x64 processor-based workstations, servers and clusters."
STAR-CD is a leading global product for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which is used to simulate flow and thermal behavior of fluids and solids. CFD programs enable scientists and engineers to analyze all types of fluid and thermal behavior in products being designed, before or instead of prototype testing, to gain much earlier valuable insight into key product performance factors. Typical applications range from air flow over a car or airplane wing, to internal combustion engines to keel performance of a racing yacht or the flow of blood through the heart. The STAR-CD system provides one of the most effective numerical methodologies available in an industrial CFD code with the high level of accuracy needed for complex physical geometries and flow behavior. STAR-CD is distinguished by its ability to deliver the speed, efficiency, accuracy and robustness required for advanced engineering design and development.
"PGI Unified Binary enables us to provide one STAR-CD installation for the x64 Linux platform that works well on both AMD and Intel CPUs. It allows STAR-CD to apply optimization for the corresponding CPU type depending on where it runs. This benefits our customers who have both AMD and Intel CPU based workstations and clusters." said Dr. Mark Liu, deputy manager, Product Development at CD-adapco. "It also helps us to have fast product delivery to use one distribution for both CPU types."
Recent trends suggest that the two main x64 processor architectures from AMD and Intel will continue to drift further apart technically in the future. Platform integrators, ISVs and major users are expressing interest in tools and technologies that can help them bridge the compatibility gap. Recognizing that this is already a critical decision factor for many companies, processor manufacturer AMD is taking an active role in cultivating and promoting customer-centric solutions like the PGI Unified Binary.
"The PGI Unified Binary gives our HPC ISVs an effective means to deliver more platform options to their customers," said Earl Stahl, vice president, Software Development at AMD. "It provides a real solution for developers facing the problems and trade-offs involved with supporting multiple platforms, and it allows them to do so without compromising processor performance."
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.
Today, PGI compilers and tools are used predominantly on 64-bit and 32-bit Linux and Microsoft Windows workstations, servers, and clusters based on microprocessors from AMD and Intel. With their latest Release 7.0 in March 2007, The Portland Group extended support to Microsoft's Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA) and provisional support for Apple's Mac OS X operating systems.
The key advantages of PGI compilers and tools are available at The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com/about/why_pgi.htm. Evaluation copies of the new PGI compilers are available as well. Registration is required.
About CD-adapco
CD-adapco is the leading global provider of full-spectrum engineering simulation (CAE) solutions for fluid flow, heat transfer and stress, with principal offices in New York, London and Yokohama and subsidiary offices around the world. STAR-CD and STAR-CCM+ software provide the world's most comprehensive CFD solutions, with STAR-CAT5 as an easy-to-use, CATIA-V5-embedded front door to the full spectrum of CD-adapco solutions, backed by 26 years of extensive experience in CAE consulting. CD-adapco's solutions are widely used across many industries, including automotive, aerospace, oil and gas, buildings, chemical process, electronics, environmental, marine, offshore structures, pharmaceuticals, power generation, rail, turbomachinery and specialized mechanical engineering applications. To learn more about CD-adapco and STAR-CD, visit: www.cd-adapco.com.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
The Portland Group Announces PGI 7.0 Optimizing
Compilers for Multi-core 64-bit Processors
Portland, OR
March 12, 2007
Latest Release Expands Cross-Platform Support to Microsoft SUA
The Portland Group™ (PGI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and the leading independent supplier of compilers and tools for high-performance computing, today announced the general availability of Release 7.0 of its suite of Fortran, C and C++ compilers and development tools. PGI® compilers and tools are used widely 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.
Today, PGI compilers and tools are used predominantly on 64-bit and 32-bit Linux and Microsoft Windows-based workstations, servers and clusters based on microprocessors from AMD and Intel. With the availability of Release 7.0, The Portland Group extends support to Microsoft's Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA). SUA is a source-code compatible subsystem for compiling and running UNIX-based applications on a computer running a Windows Server-class operating system including Windows® Vista™ Enterprise and Windows Server® 2003.
"We see growing demand for our cross-platform compilers and tools," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "With Release 7.0, we've taken the important next step in our strategy of offering programmers and developers a performance-oriented compiler and tools suite that is fully optimized for both Intel and AMD processors. PGI compilers and tools now support all major 64-bit operating systems running on x64 processor-based platforms, and add an important capability for quick and easy UNIX to Windows migration with full native support for Microsoft SUA."
"Microsoft is pleased to be working with PGI to bring its suite of high-performance compilers and tools to Windows Server and Windows Vista in support of our Subsystem for Unix-based Applications," said Ryan Gavin, director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft Corp. "SUA provides traditional UNIX and Linux developers with an easy and efficient means to leverage their existing skills and applications on the Windows platform. This allows enterprises to take advantage of the underlying reliability and cost efficiencies of the Windows platform, while enabling interoperability with their existing Unix and Linux environments. PGI compilers, coupled with SUA, give IT professionals a familiar set of tools they can use in high-demand heterogeneous environments"
PGI compilers and tools feature full native support for OpenMP parallel programming extensions, auto-parallelization for multi-core processors, full support for 64-bit addressing; native integrated scalar and vector SSE/SSE2/SSE3 code generation, PGI's world-class optimization infrastructure, and a bundled version of AMD's ACML, a library of highly optimized numeric functions for mathematical, engineering, scientific and financial applications.
"AMD multi-core processors with Direct Connect Architecture, along with PGI's compilers, deliver incredible performance for many widely-used 64-bit engineering and scientific applications such as geophysical modeling, mechanical engineering, non-linear dynamics, computational chemistry and high-energy physics," said Margaret Lewis, director, Commercial Solutions, AMD. "Working closely with leading technical innovators like The Portland Group to ensure ongoing support for the latest processor innovations is a key component of our strategy and our commitment to HPC."
New capabilities in PGI Release 7.0 include support for some Fortran 2003 features, expanded ANSI C99 support and the addition of a network installation option. Network installation simplifies the deployment and use of the PGI compilers and tools software on large networks incorporating systems with multiple distinct distributions of the Linux operating system. In addition, PGI Release 7.0 includes preliminary support for Apples' Mac OS X operating system. Full Mac OS X support will follow in mid 2007. A summary of all the new features in PGI Release 7.0 is available from The Portland Group web site at http://www.pgroup.com/support/new_rel.htm. The key advantages of PGI compilers and tools are also available at http://www.pgroup.com/about/why_pgi.htm.
Evaluation copies of the new PGI 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
The Portland Group Selected by Linux Magazine as
of the Top 20 Companies to Watch in 2007
Portland, OR
January 18, 2007
The Portland Group™ (PGI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and the leading independent supplier of compilers and tools for high-performance computing, today announced that it has been named one of the Top 20 Companies to Watch in 2007 by Linux Magazine. The Linux Magazine "20 Companies to Watch in 2007" list features vendors that are best positioned in the coming year to spur Linux and Open Source adoption while delivering on the immediate needs of the marketplace.
"The Portland Group is meeting the challenge of processor complexity and the growing need for high-performance parallel software head on. The next-generation of software development is on the horizon and PGI is well-positioned to enable it," said Bryan Richard, editorial director, Linux Magazine.
PGI compilers and tools are widely used in high-performance technical computing (HPTC) and other application areas that require parallelization and optimization capabilities to extract maximum performance from the latest multi-core processors from AMD and Intel. The compilers and tools from PGI deliver a complete, uniform, optimizing, parallel C/C++ and Fortran application development environment across 32-bit and 64-bit systems based on either AMD or Intel multi-core processors running either the Linux or Windows operating systems.
"It's quite an honor for The Portland Group to be nominated to the list of top 20 companies to watch by Linux Magazine," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "While PGI has been delivering production-quality parallel compilers and development tools for Linux since 1997, the mainstreaming of clustering and multi-core processors in the past year has really put a focus on the importance of these capabilities."
About the Linux Magazine 20 Companies to Watch List
The Linux Magazine 20 Companies to Watch list features the vendors that are making a significant impact on the next-generation of Linux and Open Source adoption. Linux Magazine selects companies that have the ability to spur Open Source adoption in all facets of Information Technology, are technology and service innovators, and develop practical solutions for the Open Enterprise. Please visit http://www.linuxmagazine.com for more information.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
The Portland Group Announces Immediate
Availability of PGI Visual Fortran
Portland, OR
September 14, 2006
PGI delivers optimizing parallel Fortran compilers and tools for multi-core x64 processors integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
The Portland Group™ (PGI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and the leading independent supplier of compilers and tools for high-performance computing, today announced the general availability of PGI Visual Fortran™ (PVF™). PVF fully integrates the PGI suite of high-performance parallelizing 64-bit and 32-bit Fortran compilers and tools with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to offer a high-productivity development solution to scientists and engineers upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit Microsoft Windows platforms.
PGI compilers and tools are widely used by engineers and scientists on 64-bit and 32-bit Linux workstations, servers, and clusters based on high-performance microprocessors from Intel and AMD. With this release, The Portland Group extends to these same processors support for building 64-bit and 32-bit Fortran applications for Windows using the popular Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Integrated Development Environment (IDE). PGI Visual Fortran incorporates compatibility features that simplify upgrading from legacy 32-bit Fortran for Windows to 64-bit platforms, including support for Windows 32-bit application programming interfaces (APIs), calling conventions, directives, and de facto standard utilities libraries.
Microsoft Visual Studio is the most widely used integrated development environment in the world. Visual Studio 2005 tools and technologies, including a parallel debugger, allow developers to leverage their existing Windows-based skills and experience to develop HPC (High-Performance Computing) applications for Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.
"With the release of PVF, The Portland Group can offer, as an option, its suite of parallel Fortran compilers and tools for multi-core processors to the large base of scientists and engineers developing for the Windows platform with Visual Studio," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "PVF's world class performance and state-of-the art compiler technologies give Windows developers a comprehensive solution for leveraging the wide array of new microprocessor innovations from both AMD and Intel, and the ability to take advantage of new HPC technologies from Microsoft, such as Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003."
PGI Visual Fortran includes the latest version of PGI's native OpenMP and auto-parallelizing compilers for the FORTRAN 77 and Fortran 95 programming languages. Key features of PVF include a complete:
* Visual Studio Fortran project system comprised of a Fortran-aware text editor with Fortran intrinsic function tips and keyword completion;
* Custom build engine for Fortran applications;
* Custom debug engine that provides the language-specific debugging capability required for Fortran;
* Support for debugging single-thread, multi-thread, and OpenMP parallel applications;
* Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 interoperability;
* Support for debugging of mixed PGI Fortran and Visual C++ 2005 applications.
All PGI compilers and tools feature full native support for OpenMP parallel programming extensions, auto-parallelization for multi-core processors, full support for 64-bit addressing, native integrated scalar, and vector SSE/SSE2/SSE3 code generation and PGI's world-class optimization infrastructure.
PGI Visual Fortran is highly optimized for 64-bit AMD64 and Intel's EM64T and 32-bit x86 processors and is unique in its ability to build the PGI Unified Binary™—a single executable file containing code sequences optimized for both AMD64 and EM64T processors. The PGI Unified Binary enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and custom applications developers to realize all the benefits of single x64 platform while leveraging the latest innovations from both Intel and AMD.
Price and Availability
PGI Visual Fortran is available in two configurations. PVF Workstation Complete has everything needed to start developing Fortran applications in minutes, including a bundled copy of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 IDE, the current MSDN documentation library, assembly-optimized BLAS/LAPACK/FFT math library routines, PGI's PGPROF(r) parallel performance profiler, and a full boxed media kit with CD-ROMs and printed documentation. The suggested list price for PVF Workstation Complete is $689 US.
PGI Visual Fortran Standard Edition is a complete production-quality parallel Fortran 95 project system module that developers who already use Visual Studio 2005 can simply plug into their existing IDE. The suggested list price for PGI Visual Fortran Standard Edition is $399 US.
All PGI products include a 30-day money-back guarantee. Complete product and pricing information on PGI Visual Fortran is available from The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
The Portland Group Delivers PGI 6.2 Compilers and
Development Tools for High-Performance Computing
San Francisco, CA
August 16, 2006
Comprehensive compiler suite delivers uniform development environment across Intel, AMD, Linux, and Windows x64 platforms
The Portland Group™ (PGI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, and a leading supplier of compilers and development tools for High-Performance Computing, today announced that version 6.2 of its PGI C/C++ and Fortran compilers and development tools will be generally available on August 24, 2006. The latest release of the PGI Workstation compilers adds native support for 32-bit Windows platforms to an existing tool suite that already supports 64-bit Windows and is the reference standard on both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux systems. PGI compilers and tools are widely used in high-performance technical computing (HPTC) and other application areas that require parallelization and optimization capabilities to extract maximum performance from the latest multi-core processors from AMD and Intel.
"The PGI Workstation 6.2 compilers and tools deliver a complete, uniform, optimizing, parallel C/C++ and Fortran application development environment across 32-bit and 64-bit systems based on either AMD or Intel multi-core processors running either the Linux or Windows operating systems," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "With this release, we have reached a point where PGI users can maintain a single source-code base and build environment for their performance-critical applications across a range of platforms that now account for over 65% of the technical computing market."
According to IDC, AMD and Intel x86-32 and x86-64 (x64) processor-based systems accounted for 49% of all HPTC systems sold in 2004, and over 65% of such systems sold in 2005. The x64-processor-based systems, pioneered by AMD with the AMD Opteron processor, have increased HPTC market share dramatically from 0.3% in 2003 to 12.9% in 2004 to 35.6% in 2005. The Portland Group was among the first commercial compiler vendors to support x64 processors, and has aggressively optimized its compilers for successive generations of AMD processors and the recently introduced x64 processors from Intel.1
In addition to extending support to native 32-bit Windows, the PGI 6.2 release includes enhancements to the unique PGI Unified Binary™ feature that enables a single x64 binary executable containing code sequences optimized for both AMD and Intel x64 processors, ensuring correct function and optimal performance regardless of the type of x64 processor on which applications are deployed. The PGI Unified Binary enables developers to leverage the latest processor innovations from both AMD and Intel while treating x64 as a single platform, maximizing flexibility and eliminating the need to target and optimize for two separate processor platforms. Other new or incremental features in the PGI 6.2 release include:
* SUSE 10.1 and SLES 10 platform support
* RedHat Fedora Core 5 platform support
* Microsoft Compute Cluster Server 2003 interoperability
* Improved interoperability with Microsoft Visual C++
* Support for Intel MMX and SSE1/SSE2/SSE3 intrinsics
* Comprehensive extended asm support on Linux
* Additional hand-tuned math intrinsics
* Incremental SSE vectorization enhancements
* C/C++ integer performance enhancements
* Enhanced auto-parallelization for multi-core processors
* PGI CDK MPICH2 support
As with previous releases of the PGI compilers, PGI 6.2 continues to offer comprehensive support for Linux and is supported on 32-bit and 64-bit Linux distributions back to and including Red Hat 7.3 and equivalents. Complete information on the PGI 6.2 compilers and tools, and free evaluation versions, are available from The Portland Group website at www.pgroup.com.
1 IDC WorldwideTechnical Server QView, February 2006.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
PGI Compilers Enable Weather Research and Forecast
Model to Run on Windows Server x64 Clusters
DRESDEN, Germany
June 27, 2006
NCAR ports WRF model to a cluster of AMD Opteron-processor-based systems using PGI compilers and tools for 64-bit Windows
The Portland Group™ (PGI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, today announced that the National Center for Atmospheric Research has ported its widely-used meteorological Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model to Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 using PGI's suite of high-performance parallelizing 64-bit Fortran compilers and tools. A prototype 64-bit version of WRF is being demonstrated this week in the Microsoft booth here at the 2006 International Supercomputer Conference.
The WRF project is an ongoing collaboration by several institutions to develop a next-generation regional forecast model and data assimilation system for operational numerical weather prediction and atmospheric research. The WRF model has been developed over the past several years and is supported on a variety of platforms using variants of the UNIX operating system. Testing towards operational implementation of WRF is in its final stages at the U.S. National Weather Service, the U.S. Air Force Weather Agency, and a number of national forecast centers in other countries. The WRF model is freely distributed to the atmospheric science community and has more than 3,000 registered users across a range of research organizations, universities and commercial users worldwide (www.wrf-model.org).
A project to port WRF to a Windows Server 2003 x64 cluster was undertaken following discussions between National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Microsoft, AMD, and PGI during the Supercomputing 2005 conference in November, 2005. Under this project, a prototype version of WRF was developed and demonstrated running in parallel on a cluster of AMD Opteron-processor-based systems at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado using the PGI Workstation 6.1 Fortran compilers and tools from The Portland Group. The WRF model Version 2.1.2 software distribution comprises about 360,000 lines of source code. Of this total, fewer than 750 lines of code required modification in order to create an operational version of WRF on Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 using the PGI compilers and tools.
"In general, while certain issues remain, it is impressive to see that with a relatively small number of changes limited mostly to the WRF build mechanism, the PGI compilers and the Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 together provided an environment that facilitated the transition of a large, existing UNIX HPC application such as WRF to the Microsoft Windows x64 environment," said John Michalakes, lead WRF software developer, National Center for Atmospheric Research.
"This is a powerful first step in the migration of several important research-community applications to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 clusters," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "We aim to enable our customers to build, maintain, and use research-community applications like WRF seamlessly across multiple platforms. This port and demonstration show the relative ease with which this is now possible."
"Scientific applications are moving to the world of 64-bit computing, and The Portland Group played an important role in helping NCAR port the Weather Research and Forecast model to Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003," said Kyril Faenov, director of high-performance computing at Microsoft Corp. "Now NCAR's collaborators within research labs, commercial weather forecasting companies and academic institutions who use Windows-based workstations can easily run WRF on HPC clusters with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003."
"AMD64 technology is at the core of many of the world's most powerful computers. Working in conjunction with partners like PGI and Microsoft, we are creating a powerful yet manageable platform with the processor, operating system, and tools technology to solve increasingly complex problems," said Terri L. Hall, vice president, software alliances, AMD. "AMD is pleased to be supporting the WRF project to develop a next-generation regional forecast model."
Complete information on the PGI compilers and tools and the preview edition of PGI Visual Fortran for Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is available from The Portland Group web site at www.pgroup.com.
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Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959
The Portland Group Announces Availability of
PGI Visual Fortran Preview Edition
Portland,
June 9, 2006
PGI integrates 64-bit optimizing parallel Fortran compilers and tools for multi-core x64 processors with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
The Portland Group™ (PGI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, today announced a public preview edition of PGI Visual Fortran™ (PVF™). The PVF Preview Edition fully integrates the PGI suite of high-performance parallelizing 64-bit Fortran compilers and tools with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to offer a high-productivity development solution to scientists and engineers upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit Microsoft Windows platforms. PVF is also integrated with the Microsoft Platform Software Developer's Kit (SDK) and the current Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) library.
PGI compilers and tools are widely used by engineers and scientists on 32-bit and 64-bit Linux workstations, servers and clusters based on high-performance microprocessors from AMD and Intel. With this preview release, The Portland Group extends to these same processors support for building 64-bit Fortran applications for Windows using the popular Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 integrated development environment (IDE). PGI Visual Fortran incorporates compatibility features that simplify upgrading from legacy 32-bit Fortran for Windows to 64-bit platforms, including support for Windows 32-bit application programming interfaces (APIs), calling conventions, directives and de facto standard utilities libraries.
"PVF is a key component of a broader PGI strategy to enable comprehensive cross-platform development and tuning of performance-critical applications," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "Our existing PGI Workstation and PGI Server product lines are the ideal solutions for developers upgrading platforms or maintaining large, complex, performance-critical applications across multiple platforms. PVF adds to the existing line a version of the PGI Fortran compilers deeply integrated with Visual Studio 2005, compatible with Windows Server 2003 x64 editions, delivering the proven ease-of-use and productivity benefits of this environment to Fortran developers looking to upgrade from 32-bit Windows or develop new parallel applications targeted for Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003."
Developing applications for Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 allows developers to leverage their existing Windows-based skills and experience. Microsoft Visual Studio is the most widely used integrated development environment in the world, and Visual Studio 2005 includes a parallel debugger used when developing HPC applications.
"The integration of PGI Visual Fortran with Visual Studio 2005 combines the benefits of Microsoft's familiar development environment with PGI's powerful and flexible parallel programming tools to accelerate the development of high-performance applications targeted for Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003," said John Borozan, group product manager, Windows Server Division at Microsoft Corp.
PGI Visual Fortran includes the latest version of PGI's native OpenMP and auto-parallelizing compilers for the FORTRAN 77 and Fortran 95 programming languages. Key features of PVF include: a customized Fortran-aware text editor for Visual Studio 2005 , Fortran intrinsics tips, Fortran keyword completion, a custom build engine for Fortran applications, a custom debug engine that provides the language-specific debugging capability required for Fortran; support for debugging of single-thread, multi-thread and OpenMP parallel applications, Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 interoperability, support for debugging of mixed PGI Fortran and Visual C++ 2005 applications and a powerful interactive parallel performance analyzer.
All PGI compilers and tools feature full native support for OpenMP parallel programming extensions, auto-parallelization for multi-core processors, full support for 64-bit addressing; native integrated scalar and vector SSE/SSE2/SSE3 code generation, PGI's world-class optimization infrastructure, and a bundled version of AMD's ACML, a library of highly optimized numeric functions for mathematical, engineering, scientific and financial applications.
PGI Visual Fortran is highly optimized for both 32-bit and 64-bit AMD64 and EM64T processors and is unique in its ability to build a single PGI Unified Binary containing code sequences optimized for both AMD64 and EM64T processors. The PGI Unified Binary enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and custom applications developers to build one binary version of their applications that can be delivered and used effectively on either AMD64 or EM64T processors.
All registered trademarks and marks are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mike Markowitz
STMicroelectronics
michael.markowitz@st.com
(212) 821 8959