LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 
Download Current Issue
ISSUE 2/1/2010 PDF

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Receive the print Edition?


 
blogs tab
Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate Available Today
A Visual Studio 2010 release candidate is available on MSDN.
02/09/2010 09:45 AM EST

Is Microsoft eyeing Office subscription pricing?
Microsoft may be preparing to offer a new Office pricing option called "union," which charges the same for cloud as on-premises.
02/01/2010 09:38 AM EST

Facebook rewrites PHP runtime
Facebook is about to open source its own PHP runtime, written from scratch for speed.
01/30/2010 08:53 PM EST

 

Events calendar tab
Macworld 2010
2/9/2010 to 2/13/2010
San Francisco
IDG World Expo

SPTechCon 2010
2/10/2010 to 2/12/2010
San Francisco
BZ Media

PyCon 2010 (Python Conf.)
2/17/2010 to 2/25/2010
Atlanta
Python Software Foundation

Southern Calif. Linux Expo
2/19/2010 to 2/20/2010
Los Angeles
SCALE

IBM Pulse
2/21/2010 to 2/24/2010
Las Vegas
IBM


 
print Printable version 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Facebook brings HipHop to PHP
HipHop compiles PHP to speed up the Web layer at world's most popular social networking si...

Adobe moves LiveCycle application platform to the cloud
Release gives developers just what they need to create targeted business process-oriented ...

Oracle acquires AmberPoint
Today's merger will probably affect most of AmberPoint's existing partnerships with other ...

Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter

Intel adds parallel programming features to compilers


By David Worthington
November 11, 2008 — 
Intel has updated three software development tools aimed at high-performance computing software developers, ahead of the introduction of its Core i7 processors.

Today the company released C++ Compiler 11.0, Intel Fortran Compiler 11.0 and Intel Cluster Toolkit 3.2. The compilers enable parallel programming for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows operating environments.

The tools have special instructions that optimize code for Intel’s Core i7 processors, the soon-to-be-released successor of the Intel Core 2 product family.

Both compilers implement OpenMP (Open Multi-Processing) 3.0, an API for multi-platform, shared-memory parallel programming. Also included are Intel Threading Building Blocks 2.1 and a collection of math and multimedia libraries. Prior to this release, the compilers did not offer task-based parallelism, said James Reinders, director of Intel software development products.

Intel will continue to look for standards such as OpenMP in parallel programming instead of trying to invent new things, he added.

The compilers also include a static analysis tool called “parallel lint,” which identifies where coding mistakes may hamper effective parallelism, Reinders noted. “[Intel has taken] a strong evolution to supporting multicore in logical ways and [to making] programmers more effective.”

“During the last few years, Intel has really taken the lead in the multicore, parallel-processing dev tools market with their early embrace of OpenMP; the development of Intel Threading Building Blocks and its release to open source; the purchase of several threading tools; and support for technologies such as auto-vectorization in its compilers,” said Andrew Binstock, principal analyst at Pacific Data Works and an SD Times columnist. “Version 11 of the compiler continues this trend by supporting expanded multicore parallel processing and providing new support for clustering. It's clear that Intel sees its [development] tools as strategic and with this release, they are putting the rest of the market into serious catch-up mode.”

Aside from parallelism, the 11.0 series of compilers broadened programming language support: The C++ compiler implements C++0x draft standard features, while the FORTRAN compiler has Fortran 2003 features. Additionally, Intel Threading Building Blocks for C++ now performs Lambda functions, Reinders added.

Cluster Toolkit Compiler Edition 3.2 now permits programmers to analyze and debug programs that are written in Message Passing Interface. Intel MPI Library 3.2, which is included in the toolkit, is device independent. “Interconnects don’t matter; you do not need to recompile programs for each interconnect,” said Reinders.

The toolkit also bundles both compilers, as well as Intel’s math libraries and tools for application deployment, testing and performance. It is available for Linux and Windows only, and Intel has no plans to port it to the Mac operating environment due to a lack of demand, he said.


Related Search Term(s): clustering, compilers, multicore, Intel


Share this link: http://www.sdtimes.com/link/33037
 

Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
  • Preview
Loading