First delivery from Heterogeneous Systems Architecture Foundation

Yesterday the Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) Foundation released Version 0.95 of its Programmer’s Reference Manual. This release is the first yield from the Foundation and is the product of an entire years’ collaboration between leading companies throughout the entire length of the heterogeneous computing value chain, from silicon to IP to ISV.

Of course I have written here before about the founding of the HSA Foundation, its values and ARM’s early commitment to join it in defining an appropriate set of standards for the industry. Since that post, the HSA Foundation has striven to generate the defining standards of heterogeneous computing – so this Manual is the result of much hard work all-round. I am therefore naturally very pleased to see this release announced by the Foundation. This Reference Manual will now be the building block upon which ARM’s critical ecosystem of software developers, from tools to middleware, can design their products and, through this, develop the field of HSA, allowing the Foundation to succeed in its aim of combining the best capabilities of CPU, GPU and accompanying technologies.
ARM has contributed to the Foundation’s working groups many of its top experts from the fields of computer processing, graphics processing, interconnect and compiler technology and software. These colleagues of mine are working alongside HSA ecosystem partners, ensuring that what the Foundation delivers is based on the knowledge and experience of the entire breadth of the industry: an example of the ARM partnership model at its finest.
Version 0.95 of the Programmer’s Reference Manual is the initial output in a line of specifications that the HSA Foundation will be releasing over the months to come.
Hopefully, the next to appear will be the Hardware System Architecture Specification…!
Jem is an ARM Fellow and likes to think of himself as “The Godfather” to technical talent in ARM. After spending some time in his youth writing software for satellites and traffic-lights among other fascinating things, Jem spotted the technical inflection point of the mobile industry: graphics, video and other visual computing. As VP of technology in the Media Processing Division of ARM, Jem is busy with a lot of projects involving the future of cool ARM technology, which will revolutionise how people experience and interact with digital devices.