General-Purpose Graphics Processor Architectures


Book Description

Originally developed to support video games, graphics processor units (GPUs) are now increasingly used for general-purpose (non-graphics) applications ranging from machine learning to mining of cryptographic currencies. GPUs can achieve improved performance and efficiency versus central processing units (CPUs) by dedicating a larger fraction of hardware resources to computation. In addition, their general-purpose programmability makes contemporary GPUs appealing to software developers in comparison to domain-specific accelerators. This book provides an introduction to those interested in studying the architecture of GPUs that support general-purpose computing. It collects together information currently only found among a wide range of disparate sources. The authors led development of the GPGPU-Sim simulator widely used in academic research on GPU architectures. The first chapter of this book describes the basic hardware structure of GPUs and provides a brief overview of their history. Chapter 2 provides a summary of GPU programming models relevant to the rest of the book. Chapter 3 explores the architecture of GPU compute cores. Chapter 4 explores the architecture of the GPU memory system. After describing the architecture of existing systems, Chapters 3 and 4 provide an overview of related research. Chapter 5 summarizes cross-cutting research impacting both the compute core and memory system. This book should provide a valuable resource for those wishing to understand the architecture of graphics processor units (GPUs) used for acceleration of general-purpose applications and to those who want to obtain an introduction to the rapidly growing body of research exploring how to improve the architecture of these GPUs.




GPU Gems 2


Book Description

More useful techniques, tips, and tricks for harnessing the power of the new generation of powerful GPUs.




Programming Massively Parallel Processors


Book Description

Programming Massively Parallel Processors: A Hands-on Approach, Second Edition, teaches students how to program massively parallel processors. It offers a detailed discussion of various techniques for constructing parallel programs. Case studies are used to demonstrate the development process, which begins with computational thinking and ends with effective and efficient parallel programs. This guide shows both student and professional alike the basic concepts of parallel programming and GPU architecture. Topics of performance, floating-point format, parallel patterns, and dynamic parallelism are covered in depth. This revised edition contains more parallel programming examples, commonly-used libraries such as Thrust, and explanations of the latest tools. It also provides new coverage of CUDA 5.0, improved performance, enhanced development tools, increased hardware support, and more; increased coverage of related technology, OpenCL and new material on algorithm patterns, GPU clusters, host programming, and data parallelism; and two new case studies (on MRI reconstruction and molecular visualization) that explore the latest applications of CUDA and GPUs for scientific research and high-performance computing. This book should be a valuable resource for advanced students, software engineers, programmers, and hardware engineers. - New coverage of CUDA 5.0, improved performance, enhanced development tools, increased hardware support, and more - Increased coverage of related technology, OpenCL and new material on algorithm patterns, GPU clusters, host programming, and data parallelism - Two new case studies (on MRI reconstruction and molecular visualization) explore the latest applications of CUDA and GPUs for scientific research and high-performance computing




CUDA by Example


Book Description

CUDA is a computing architecture designed to facilitate the development of parallel programs. In conjunction with a comprehensive software platform, the CUDA Architecture enables programmers to draw on the immense power of graphics processing units (GPUs) when building high-performance applications. GPUs, of course, have long been available for demanding graphics and game applications. CUDA now brings this valuable resource to programmers working on applications in other domains, including science, engineering, and finance. No knowledge of graphics programming is required—just the ability to program in a modestly extended version of C. CUDA by Example, written by two senior members of the CUDA software platform team, shows programmers how to employ this new technology. The authors introduce each area of CUDA development through working examples. After a concise introduction to the CUDA platform and architecture, as well as a quick-start guide to CUDA C, the book details the techniques and trade-offs associated with each key CUDA feature. You’ll discover when to use each CUDA C extension and how to write CUDA software that delivers truly outstanding performance. Major topics covered include Parallel programming Thread cooperation Constant memory and events Texture memory Graphics interoperability Atomics Streams CUDA C on multiple GPUs Advanced atomics Additional CUDA resources All the CUDA software tools you’ll need are freely available for download from NVIDIA. http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cuda-by-example.html




Parallel and High Performance Computing


Book Description

Parallel and High Performance Computing offers techniques guaranteed to boost your code’s effectiveness. Summary Complex calculations, like training deep learning models or running large-scale simulations, can take an extremely long time. Efficient parallel programming can save hours—or even days—of computing time. Parallel and High Performance Computing shows you how to deliver faster run-times, greater scalability, and increased energy efficiency to your programs by mastering parallel techniques for multicore processor and GPU hardware. About the technology Write fast, powerful, energy efficient programs that scale to tackle huge volumes of data. Using parallel programming, your code spreads data processing tasks across multiple CPUs for radically better performance. With a little help, you can create software that maximizes both speed and efficiency. About the book Parallel and High Performance Computing offers techniques guaranteed to boost your code’s effectiveness. You’ll learn to evaluate hardware architectures and work with industry standard tools such as OpenMP and MPI. You’ll master the data structures and algorithms best suited for high performance computing and learn techniques that save energy on handheld devices. You’ll even run a massive tsunami simulation across a bank of GPUs. What's inside Planning a new parallel project Understanding differences in CPU and GPU architecture Addressing underperforming kernels and loops Managing applications with batch scheduling About the reader For experienced programmers proficient with a high-performance computing language like C, C++, or Fortran. About the author Robert Robey works at Los Alamos National Laboratory and has been active in the field of parallel computing for over 30 years. Yuliana Zamora is currently a PhD student and Siebel Scholar at the University of Chicago, and has lectured on programming modern hardware at numerous national conferences. Table of Contents PART 1 INTRODUCTION TO PARALLEL COMPUTING 1 Why parallel computing? 2 Planning for parallelization 3 Performance limits and profiling 4 Data design and performance models 5 Parallel algorithms and patterns PART 2 CPU: THE PARALLEL WORKHORSE 6 Vectorization: FLOPs for free 7 OpenMP that performs 8 MPI: The parallel backbone PART 3 GPUS: BUILT TO ACCELERATE 9 GPU architectures and concepts 10 GPU programming model 11 Directive-based GPU programming 12 GPU languages: Getting down to basics 13 GPU profiling and tools PART 4 HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ECOSYSTEMS 14 Affinity: Truce with the kernel 15 Batch schedulers: Bringing order to chaos 16 File operations for a parallel world 17 Tools and resources for better code




Stream Processor Architecture


Book Description

Media processing applications, such as three-dimensional graphics, video compression, and image processing, currently demand 10-100 billion operations per second of sustained computation. Fortunately, hundreds of arithmetic units can easily fit on a modestly sized 1cm2 chip in modern VLSI. The challenge is to provide these arithmetic units with enough data to enable them to meet the computation demands of media processing applications. Conventional storage hierarchies, which frequently include caches, are unable to bridge the data bandwidth gap between modern DRAM and tens to hundreds of arithmetic units. A data bandwidth hierarchy, however, can bridge this gap by scaling the provided bandwidth across the levels of the storage hierarchy. The stream programming model enables media processing applications to exploit a data bandwidth hierarchy effectively. Media processing applications can naturally be expressed as a sequence of computation kernels that operate on data streams. This programming model exposes the locality and concurrency inherent in these applications and enables them to be mapped efficiently to the data bandwidth hierarchy. Stream programs are able to utilize inexperience local data bandwidth when possible and consume expensive global data bandwidth only when necessary. Stream Processor Architecture presents the architecture of the Imagine streaming media processor, which delivers a peak performance of 20 billion floating-point operations per second. Imagine efficiently supports 48 arithmetic units with a three-tiered data bandwidth hierarchy. At the base of the hierarchy, the streaming memory system employs memory access scheduling to maximize the sustained bandwidth of external DRAM. At the center of the hierarchy, the global stream register file enables streams of data to be recirculated directly from one computation kernel to the next without returning data to memory. Finally, local distributed register files that directly feed the arithmetic units enable temporary data to be stored locally so that it does not need to consume costly global register bandwidth. The bandwidth hierarchy enables Imagine to achieve up to 96% of the performance of a stream processor with infinite bandwidth from memory and the global register file.




General-Purpose Graphics Processor Architectures


Book Description

Originally developed to support video games, graphics processor units (GPUs) are now increasingly used for general-purpose (non-graphics) applications ranging from machine learning to mining of cryptographic currencies. GPUs can achieve improved performance and efficiency versus central processing units (CPUs) by dedicating a larger fraction of hardware resources to computation. In addition, their general-purpose programmability makes contemporary GPUs appealing to software developers in comparison to domain-specific accelerators. This book provides an introduction to those interested in studying the architecture of GPUs that support general-purpose computing. It collects together information currently only found among a wide range of disparate sources. The authors led development of the GPGPU-Sim simulator widely used in academic research on GPU architectures. The first chapter of this book describes the basic hardware structure of GPUs and provides a brief overview of their history. Chapter 2 provides a summary of GPU programming models relevant to the rest of the book. Chapter 3 explores the architecture of GPU compute cores. Chapter 4 explores the architecture of the GPU memory system. After describing the architecture of existing systems, Chapters \ref{ch03} and \ref{ch04} provide an overview of related research. Chapter 5 summarizes cross-cutting research impacting both the compute core and memory system. This book should provide a valuable resource for those wishing to understand the architecture of graphics processor units (GPUs) used for acceleration of general-purpose applications and to those who want to obtain an introduction to the rapidly growing body of research exploring how to improve the architecture of these GPUs.




Artificial Intelligence Hardware Design


Book Description

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HARDWARE DESIGN Learn foundational and advanced topics in Neural Processing Unit design with real-world examples from leading voices in the field In Artificial Intelligence Hardware Design: Challenges and Solutions, distinguished researchers and authors Drs. Albert Chun Chen Liu and Oscar Ming Kin Law deliver a rigorous and practical treatment of the design applications of specific circuits and systems for accelerating neural network processing. Beginning with a discussion and explanation of neural networks and their developmental history, the book goes on to describe parallel architectures, streaming graphs for massive parallel computation, and convolution optimization. The authors offer readers an illustration of in-memory computation through Georgia Tech’s Neurocube and Stanford’s Tetris accelerator using the Hybrid Memory Cube, as well as near-memory architecture through the embedded eDRAM of the Institute of Computing Technology, the Chinese Academy of Science, and other institutions. Readers will also find a discussion of 3D neural processing techniques to support multiple layer neural networks, as well as information like: A thorough introduction to neural networks and neural network development history, as well as Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models Explorations of various parallel architectures, including the Intel CPU, Nvidia GPU, Google TPU, and Microsoft NPU, emphasizing hardware and software integration for performance improvement Discussions of streaming graph for massive parallel computation with the Blaize GSP and Graphcore IPU An examination of how to optimize convolution with UCLA Deep Convolutional Neural Network accelerator filter decomposition Perfect for hardware and software engineers and firmware developers, Artificial Intelligence Hardware Design is an indispensable resource for anyone working with Neural Processing Units in either a hardware or software capacity.




PARALLEL COMPUTERS ARCHITECTURE AND PROGRAMMING


Book Description

Today all computers, from tablet/desktop computers to super computers, work in parallel. A basic knowledge of the architecture of parallel computers and how to program them, is thus, essential for students of computer science and IT professionals. In its second edition, the book retains the lucidity of the first edition and has added new material to reflect the advances in parallel computers. It is designed as text for the final year undergraduate students of computer science and engineering and information technology. It describes the principles of designing parallel computers and how to program them. This second edition, while retaining the general structure of the earlier book, has added two new chapters, ‘Core Level Parallel Processing’ and ‘Grid and Cloud Computing’ based on the emergence of parallel computers on a single silicon chip popularly known as multicore processors and the rapid developments in Cloud Computing. All chapters have been revised and some chapters are re-written to reflect the emergence of multicore processors and the use of MapReduce in processing vast amounts of data. The new edition begins with an introduction to how to solve problems in parallel and describes how parallelism is used in improving the performance of computers. The topics discussed include instruction level parallel processing, architecture of parallel computers, multicore processors, grid and cloud computing, parallel algorithms, parallel programming, compiler transformations, operating systems for parallel computers, and performance evaluation of parallel computers.




CUDA Handbook


Book Description

The CUDA Handbook begins where CUDA by Example (Addison-Wesley, 2011) leaves off, discussing CUDA hardware and software in greater detail and covering both CUDA 5.0 and Kepler. Every CUDA developer, from the casual to the most sophisticated, will find something here of interest and immediate usefulness. Newer CUDA developers will see how the hardware processes commands and how the driver checks progress; more experienced CUDA developers will appreciate the expert coverage of topics such as the driver API and context migration, as well as the guidance on how best to structure CPU/GPU data interchange and synchronization. The accompanying open source code–more than 25,000 lines of it, freely available at www.cudahandbook.com–is specifically intended to be reused and repurposed by developers. Designed to be both a comprehensive reference and a practical cookbook, the text is divided into the following three parts: Part I, Overview, gives high-level descriptions of the hardware and software that make CUDA possible. Part II, Details, provides thorough descriptions of every aspect of CUDA, including Memory Streams and events Models of execution, including the dynamic parallelism feature, new with CUDA 5.0 and SM 3.5 The streaming multiprocessors, including descriptions of all features through SM 3.5 Programming multiple GPUs Texturing The source code accompanying Part II is presented as reusable microbenchmarks and microdemos, designed to expose specific hardware characteristics or highlight specific use cases. Part III, Select Applications, details specific families of CUDA applications and key parallel algorithms, including Streaming workloads Reduction Parallel prefix sum (Scan) N-body Image Processing These algorithms cover the full range of potential CUDA applications.