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HSA Announces Publication of New Guide to Heterogeneous System Architecture

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AUSTIN, TX, Dec. 17, 2015 – The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation today announced publication of Heterogeneous System Architecture: A New Compute Platform Infrastructure (1st Edition), edited by Dr. Wen-Mei Hwu. The book, published by Elsevier Publishing (http://store.elsevier.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780128008010), offers a practical guide to understanding HSA, a standardized platform design that unlocks the performance and power efficiency of parallel computing engines found in most modern electronic devices.
“Heterogeneous computing is a key enabler of the next generation of compute environments, wherein entire systems will interconnect autonomously and in real time,” said HSA Foundation President Dr. John Glossner. “Developers who are skilled in the use of this platform will have the upper hand in terms of design time, IP portability, power efficiency and performance.”
To support these developers, the HSA Foundation working groups are rapidly standardizing tools and APIs for debug and profiling, creating guidelines for incorporating IP from multiple vendors into the same SoC, and much more. The Foundation released the v1.0 specification in March, and soon thereafter, companies including AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies and MediaTek previewed their plans for rolling out the world’s first products based on HSA.
“The HSA guidebook will help proliferate the platform among students, programmers and developers worldwide,” said Dr. Hwu. “This publication will help them quickly learn more about HSA concepts, fundamentals, and practices, including techniques for creating virtual parallel systems, as well as compiling and simulating designs.”
Through the new book, software application developers, computer science researchers, and students in computer architecture, distributed computing, and software engineering courses will learn:

  • How performance-bound programming algorithms and application types can be significantly optimized by using HSA hardware and software features;
  • Ideal mapping of processing resources from CPUs to many other heterogeneous processors, in compliance with HSA specifications ;
  • Clear and concise explanations of key HSA concepts and fundamentals provided by expert HSA specification contributors.

The book begins with an overview of the evolution of heterogeneous parallel processing and its historic challenges. Later chapters provide a deeper perspective on topics such as runtime, memory model, queuing, context switching, the architected queuing language, simulators, and tool chains. The publication also includes three real world examples that clearly demonstrate how HSA can deliver significantly higher performance thru C++ based applications.
Contributing authors include HSA Foundation members and experts from both academia and industry. Some of these distinguished authors include: Yeh-Ching Chung, Benedict R. Gaster, Juan Gómez-Luna, Derek Hower, Lee Howes, Shih-Hao Hung, Thomas B. Jablin, David Kaeli, Phil Rogers, Ben Sander, I-Jui (Ray) Sung.
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs committed to making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing. See: www.hsafoundation.com, also follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter.

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HSA Conformance Test Suite Now Available to Members

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Following the release of the v1.0 specification in March 2015, HSA Conformance tests are now available online. HSA Foundation members can access these tests to ensure compliance of their HSA products with the specification.
According to Dr. Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research: “After the HSA’s successful release of the v1.0 specification in March 2015, the organization went to work on developing conformance tests. Conformance testing is critical to a meaningful HSA certification, and now that is in place too. This firmly and permanently establishes the organization’s place in the industry.”

Best Wishes to Phil Rogers

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The HSA Foundation would like to thank Phil Rogers for his four years of service to the HSA Foundation. The Foundation greatly appreciates his mentoring the next generation of leaders who will help usher in widespread acceptance and adoption of heterogeneous computing. The HSA Foundation community of leaders and members will continue to collaborate making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. We wish Phil the best in his new endeavors.
– HSA Foundation Board of Directors

HSA Foundation Members Preview Plans for Heterogeneous Platforms

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SANTA CLARA, CA, Oct. 6, 2015 – The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation today previewed several of its members’ plans for supporting HSA in their next-generation products. Products from AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies and MediaTek will be the world’s first that are based on HSA, a standardized platform design that unlocks the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in most modern electronic devices.
HSA allows developers to easily and efficiently apply the hardware resources in today’s complex systems-on-chips (SoCs). It will enable applications to run faster and at lower power across the range of computing platforms spanning mobile devices, desktops, high-performance computing (HPC) systems and servers.
Following the release of the v1.0 specification in March 2015, conformance tests are now available online to members who are testing their platforms in preparation for HSA certification. To support these products, HSA Foundation working groups are standardizing tools and APIs for debug and profiling, creating guidelines for incorporating IP from multiple vendors into the same SoC, and much more.
“These are exciting times for the industry as companies prepare to introduce the first HSA products,” said Greg Stoner, managing director of the HSA Foundation, and senior director, computing technology for AMD. “As we draw ever closer to pervasive adoption of heterogeneous computing, devices will be able to run applications at much higher performance and lower power, providing an opportunity for developers to create incredible new applications across computing platforms.”
“After the HSA’s successful release of the v1.0 specification in March 2015, the organization went to work on developing conformance tests,” said Dr. Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research. “Conformance testing is critical to a meaningful HSA certification, and now that is in place too. This firmly and permanently establishes the organization’s place in the industry.”
HSA Foundation members lay out their plans
AMD recently launched the world’s first processors designed to support the full set of HSA features with their SoC products targeting the desktop and laptop PC markets. “AMD is thrilled to be amongst the first companies shipping products designed to fully support the HSA Foundation standards with the introduction of the 6th generation A-series processor (code-named “Carrizo”),” said Stoner. “We see HSA as the right technical direction for the industry to fully utilize the capabilities of modern SoCs to deliver improved performance, power utilization and programmability.”
“As a founding member of the HSA foundation, ARM has worked with our fellow members to develop specifications that enable hardware and software to take advantage of both CPU and GPU compute,” said Jem Davies, vice president of technology, media processing group, ARM. “ARM is actively developing CPU, GPU and interconnect IP with energy efficiency and full system coherency as guiding design principles while extending the system capabilities aligned with HSA coherency standards.”
Imagination is planning a staged rollout of HSA across its processors starting in 2016. This includes MIPS I-class and P-class CPUs, PowerVR GPUs and HSA compliant fabric solutions. According to Peter McGuinness, director of multimedia technology marketing for Imagination, “Because it provides a consistent programming model and enables efficient execution on CPUs, GPUs and beyond, HSA is an important standard for future SoCs. Imagination has played a key role in developing the HSA specifications as a founder member of the HSA Foundation. HSA holds the promise of enabling developers to write software that makes the most of our future heterogeneous platforms targeting a range of devices including mobile and tablets, vision systems, automotive, and more.”
MediaTek is working with partners in developing HSA features on mobile SoCs. The company is already receiving interest in HSA from customers, and is on track to deliver HSA features in mobile SoC products in phases. “MediaTek is a firm believer in the value of heterogeneous computing and a strong supporter of the good work of the HSA Foundation. We are working to leverage this technology into our products to provide even better end user experience,” said Giri Amarakone, senior director, marketing and business development, MediaTek.
General Processor Technologies (GPT) is sponsoring an open source project to expand HSA tools support to the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) by enabling HSA Intermediate Language (HSAIL) binary format (BRIG) translation for GCC. “We’re delighted to be involved in creating a foundational tools ecosystem for HSA. Through the project we’re sponsoring, heterogeneous processors may benefit from kernel agent support and the vector/SIMD optimizations in GCC,” said Dr. John Glossner, CEO of General Processor Technologies.
As companies roll out their HSA platforms, hardware and software learnings will be quickly integrated into the HSA specifications. The v1.1 specification will be available in the first quarter of 2016 and will be backward compatible with v1.0.
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.
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HSA Foundation Launches New Era of Pervasive, Energy-Efficient Computing with HSA 1.0 Specification Release

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SAN JOSE, California, March 16, 2015 – The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundationtodayannounced a major milestone with its release of the 1.0 HSA specification, which brings the technology industry one step closer to true heterogeneous computing on platforms spanning mobile devices, desktops, high-performance computing (HPC) systems and servers.
HSA is a standardized platform design supported by more than 40 technology companies and 17 universities that unlocks the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in most modern electronic devices. It allows developers to easily and efficiently apply the hardware resources in today’s complex systems-on-chip (SOCs).
“Through HSA, we are working to ensure that end users of technology live in a world of new, incredible applications that run fast at low power,” said Phil Rogers, president of the HSA Foundation. “The Foundation members have been collaborating on this project since we joined together in June 2012, and we are thrilled to be delivering the fruit of that labor today.”
The newly-approved specification comprises the key elements that improve the programmability of heterogeneous processors, the portability of programming code and interoperability across different vendor devices. These include:

  • The HSA System Architecture Specification, which defines how the hardware operates;
  • The HSA Programmers Reference Manual (PRM), which targets the software ecosystem, tool and compiler developers;
  • The HSA Runtime Specification, which defines how applications interact with HSA platforms.

“HSA specification 1.0 includes several crucial features for efficient implementation of productive high-level languages, such as C++, Java and Python on heterogeneous computing hardware,” said Professor Wen-Mei Hwu, CTO, Multicoreware, and Professor, Computer Engineering, UIUC. “Such enhancement of programmability will make the benefit of heterogeneous computing available to mainstream, mobile and server applications.”
“HSA has been remarkably well accepted and supported,” added Jon Peddie, who heads Jon Peddie Research, a computer graphics market research and management consulting firm. “The specification has answered an obvious need in the industry, which is reflected in its growing membership.”
“Release of the new specification should help improve more power efficient computing performance across a wide array of computing platforms,” said Patrick Moorhead, who leads market research firm Moor Insights & Strategy. “I anticipate a lot of interesting use cases, from video chat apps and search to TV shows and movies. App developers should also find it easier to harness all of the processors together.”
The specification was officially launched today during the HSA 1.0 launch event held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. The event featured a panel discussion among HSA Foundation board members, including AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies, LG, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Samsung. A developer panel of industry luminaries discussing software, the ecosystem and applications in the mobile, PC and HPC computing was also featured.
Additional Resources:

Supporting Quotes
AMD
“HSA 1.0 is an idea whose time has come. It gives developers easier access to the power-efficient performance on today’s rich SoCs than ever before, freeing them to find creative solutions to compute’s toughest challenges. AMD intends to bring processors which incorporate the architecture described in the specification to market in 2015 and help lead the industry into the new era of heterogeneous computing.”
–Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, AMD
ARM
“Heterogeneous computing is playing an increasing role in system design. HSA systems will enable energy-efficient interoperation between multiple processor types to take full advantage of next-generation SoCs.”
– Jem Davies, vice president of technology, media processing group, ARM
Imagination Technologies
“The future of computing will be based around heterogeneous platforms, and software APIs will be essential in their creation. As a co-founder of the HSA Foundation, Imagination is pleased to have played a key role in developing the new specifications. These specifications will enable interoperability across devices, and will let developers write software that makes the most of future coherent heterogeneous hardware platforms that include our PowerVR GPUs and MIPS CPUs.”
– John Min, director of processor technology marketing, Imagination Technologies
LG Electronics
“HSA will address the current needs of efficient computing, enabling consumers to take full benefit of maximizing the overall performance in their smart devices. We are looking forward to enhancing our SoC technologies in the partnership with HSA.”
– SJ Choi, senior vice president, LG Electronics
MediaTek
“MediaTek has been leveraging heterogeneous computing resources available in SoCs, and was one of the first to productize mainstream heterogeneous applications, including 2D-to-3D, video face beautifier, video stabilization in MT6589 and stereo camera features in MT6785. HSA allows us to move to the next step of heterogeneous computing with the ease of conventional programming and superior power efficiency.”
– Giri Amarakone, senior director, marketing and business development, MediaTek
Qualcomm
“Qualcomm Technologies Inc. is developing new, low power, heterogeneous computing technologies for Qualcomm® Hexagon TM DSP, Qualcomm® AdrenoTM GPU and custom CPU micro architectures. We believe that application developers for mobile and “Internet of Everything” devices can deliver innovative experiences on Qualcomm® Snapdragon TM processors if certain aspects of heterogeneous computing are standardized. Together with operating system companies and various standards committees including the HSA Foundation, of which QTI is a founding member, we are collaborating with many industry players to help define open standards that are beneficial for these types of new opportunities.”
– Tim Leland, vice president of product management, Qualcomm Technologies Inc.
Samsung
“Samsung is pursuing the best products in the world, such as application processors and smart phones for the mobile market. Heterogeneous system architecture is a good candidate for building efficient systems and the release of the 1.0 HSA specification will help Samsung achieve its goals in a more efficient way.”
– Jay Kim, vice president, Samsung Electronics
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs, whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive. HSA members are building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, which combines scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU, while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance with low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation using CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, and creating the foundation for next-generation, general-purpose computing.
Contact:
Neal Leavitt
Leavitt Communications
(760) 639-2900
neal@leavcom.com
 

Tech Giants and Leading National Labs join the HSA Foundation

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NEWS RELEASE

 

Contact:

Morgan Frikie

HSA Foundation

512-237-7064

pr@hsafoundation.com

 

Tech Giants and Leading National Labs join the HSA Foundation

— Oracle, Broadcom, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Huawei are among industry-leading organizations recently joining the HSA Foundation to advance open standards for heterogeneous compute programming —

 

— Open Source Developer Program launched to drive greater developer productivity in heterogeneous computing—

 

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nov. 12, 2013 — The HSA Foundation today announced at the 2013 AMD Developer Summit, “APU13”, the addition of new members spanning Fortune 500 technology giants, software innovators, high-tech silicon suppliers and the world’s most forefront research institutions. Backed by founder members, AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek Inc., Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics and Texas Instruments (TI), the HSA Foundation is dedicated to developing open-standard architecture specifications that unlock the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in most modern devices.
“Joining the HSA Foundation represents the next step towards bringing heterogeneous computing to millions of developers, as well as the introduction of new server and cloud programming paradigms,” said Nandini Ramani, vice president of development, Java Platform, Oracle. “Our work with the HSA Foundation will help provide Java developers with the ability to quickly leverage GPU acceleration, and explore how the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), as well as the Java language and APIs, might be enhanced to allow applications to take advantage of heterogeneous compute.”
“In less than six months, more than a dozen of the industry’s elite have pledged their support to driving the HSA standard forward,” said Phil Rogers, president, HSA Foundation. “The rapid adoption of HSA and the development of the Foundation’s open ecosystem will help usher in the next era unprecedented user experiences to improving cloud-based data management, streaming, and security.”
As an independent consortium, the HSA Foundation is open to any computing industry professionals with an interest in driving the next era in computing performance and energy efficiency.  Members will assist with research, development, production, manufacture, use, and the sale of HSA and heterogeneous computing software. The latest members to join the HSA Foundation include:

  • Broadcom
  • Canonical Limited
  • Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)
  • Huawei
  • Industrial Technology Res. Institute
  • Kishonti
  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
  • Linaro
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • Oracle
  • Synopsys
  • TEI of Crete
  • UChicago Argonne, LLC. Operator of Argonne National Laboratory
  • VIA Technologies

 
Also announced today is the formation of the HSA Foundation Open Source Developer Program.  The new program will help drive greater developer productivity in heterogeneous computing by removing many of the barriers of traditional heterogeneous programming and enabling developers to focus on their algorithms and not managing system resources. Specifically, the program will focus on three key areas:

  • Development of core tools, runtimes and simulators that allow developers to access HSA technologies
  • Provide documentation and tools to help accelerate the development of applications on top of HSAF runtimes technologies
  • Give developers a place to contribute to the development of the open source HSA tools and runtimes

         Through the Open Source Developer Program, engaging the HSA Foundation and all the technologies that encompass the HSA specifications is now easier and more effective.  Parties interested in exploring and contributing to HSA can use the HSA Foundation Open Source Developer Program resources. Anyone can join the mailing lists, ask questions, contribute patches, report bugs, look at submitted patches, and use the tools.
 
Supporting Resources

 
About The HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a not-for-profit consortium of  SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs whose challenging the normal of how whole system architecture is structured for combing CPU’s, GPU’s, DSP’s, and other accelerators to bring about forward progress in computing’s foundation to make it dramatically easier to program heterogeneous parallel devices. HSA Foundation is driving this via Royalty Free Specifications and open source software: HSA runtimes and low level compilation tools based on open source technologies like LLVM and GCC.
HSA Foundation members are building a heterogeneous compute software ecosystem which is rooted on open royalty free industry standards. We are looking to bring about applications that blend scalar processing on the CPU, parallel processing on the GPU, and optimized processing of DSP via high bandwidth shared memory access with greater application performance at low power consumption. HSA Foundation is defining key interfaces and  for parallel computation utilizing CPU, GPU,  DSP’s and other programmable and fixed function devices, which will support a diverse set of high-level programming languages creating the next foundation in general purpose computing. Most importantly we are driving to bring greater developer productivity to heterogeneous computing by removing many of the barriers of traditional heterogeneous programing so they can focus on their algorithms and not managing system resources.   One of the key attributes of Cache Coherent Shared Virtual Memory (“CC-SVM”) is begin looking at larger dataset then traditionally supported by today co-processor devices with fixed memory pools. For more information, visit www.hsafoundation.com.

HSA Foundation announces first specification

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HSA Foundation announces first specification
Programmer’s Reference Manual establishes framework for HSA ecosystem
 
Beaverton, OR, May 29, 2013 – The HSA Foundation has released Version 0.95 of its Programmer¹s Reference Manual. The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a not-for-profit consortium dedicated to developing architecture specifications that unlock the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in most modern devices. This is the first output from the HSA Foundation, who have been collaborating on this project since its founding in June 2012. It represents an important step in the development of the HSA Foundation¹s ecosystem because it enables software partners to develop libraries, tools and middleware and to code high performance kernels.
 
The Programmer¹s Reference Manual provides a standardized method of accessing all available computing resources in HSA-compliant systems. This enables a wide range of system resources to cooperate on parallelizable tasks. It has been specifically designed to perform in the most energy efficient way without compromising on performance. The goal is to enable a heterogeneous architecture that is easy to program, opens up new and rich user experiences and improves performance and quality of service, whilst reducing energy consumption.
 
The programming architecture detailed in the HSA Programmer¹s Reference Manual calls out features specifically exposed to programmers of the HSA architecture. HSA devices will typically include a broad class of devices, including GPUs and DSPs and support a number of key hardware features that enable easier developer programmability. These include shared coherent virtual memory, platform atomics, user mode queuing and GPU self-queuing.
 
These features, in conjunction with the correct software stack make programming all devices in an HSA architecture as easy as programming a CPU, and because of this, closer interlinking of processing on all devices is made possible. HSA abstracts away the native instruction set of the parallel processor through the HSA Intermediate Language (HSAIL). This language has been designed for parallel processing and can be translated on-the-fly to many native instruction sets, supporting innovations in different underlying hardware implementations through consistent HSAIL-compiled programs.
 
The HSA architecture also benefits existing APIs such as OpenCL and Renderscript through avoidance of wasteful copies, low-latency dispatch, improved memory model and shared virtual memory between all HSA devices.
 
The HSA Foundation continues to work on the next specifications which will detail the hardware system architecture, run-time details and compliance requirements.
See blog by HSA Foundation PRM Working Group Chair, Chien-Ping Lu, for a very personal and insightful commentary on the PRM odyssey and what it and HSA can mean to the community.
 
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a not-for-profit consortium for SoC IP vendors, OEMs, Academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs whose goal is to make it easy to program for parallel computing. HSA members are building a heterogeneous compute ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, for combining scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance at low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation utilizing CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, and support for a diverse set of high-level programming languages, thereby creating the next foundation in general purpose computing.
 
Quotes:
“AMD is pleased to see that the HSA Foundation is strongly united around making it natural, easy and fun for programmers to utilize the capability of heterogeneous platforms and to innovate in creating modern application with tremendous performance at low power,” says Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, Heterogeneous Solutions, AMD
 
ARM believes that we can tackle industry issues only by working together in partnership. ARM has collaborated with members of the HSA Foundation since early 2011 to help define standards for heterogeneous computing. This is the Foundation’s first publication and we hope that it is one of many steps forward towards realizing fully optimized applications,” said Jem Davies, vice president of Technology, Media Processing Division and Fellow, ARM. “The Manual enables many organizations to benefit from access to this information, which means that the software ecosystem will be able to create exciting new applications for a range of form factors and devices in energy-constrained systems.”
 
“Heterogeneous processing architectures represent the future of computing. As a founder member of the HSA, Imagination is delighted to play a role in driving APIs and tools that will help SoC designers create future computing platforms. The ratification of the HSAIL language specification is another step toward making heterogeneous processing usable by a far broader app developer community.” – Tony King-Smith, EVP Marketing, Imagination Technologies
 
“The latest version of the PRM by the HSA Foundation is an important first step in providing a standardized way to access a wide range of system resources. It will contribute greatly toward achieving higher system performance in smart devices.” — Dr. Seung-jong Choi, Senior Vice President SIC Lab, LG Electronics Inc.
 
“Mediatek is a staunch supporter of heterogeneous system architecture and very pleased with the public release of HSAIL.  Opening and standardizing the interface between CPU and GPU allows for parallel operation of these 2 key processors in mobile chipsets, and most importantly, creates portability of high-level software applications.”, said Mohit Bhushan, VP & GM, MediaTek.
 
“As a leading supplier of low power, multicore GPU technologies for smaller, faster, cooler products, we are pleased to contribute to Version 0.95 of the HSA Programmer’s Reference Manual. This milestone builds the foundation for heterogeneous architectures to be productized in leading silicon solutions that have the most stringent die area and low power requirements,” stated Wei-Jin Dai, President and CEO of Vivante.
 

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Media Contact:
Morgan Fricke
HSA Foundation
P: 503.619.0663
E: press@standards.hsafoundation.com
 

Tensilica Joins HSA Foundation to Help Establish Standards for Embedded Heterogeneous Computing

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Tensilica Joins HSA Foundation to Help Establish Standards for Embedded Heterogeneous Computing

 
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – March 19, 2013 –Tensilica®, Inc  today announced that it has joined the HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation, a not-for-profit consortium dedicated to  developing  architecture specifications that will unlock the performance and power efficiency of parallel computing engines found in many modern devices. Tensilica will contribute its years of experience assisting customers in bringing heterogeneous multicore SoC (system-on-chip) designs to market to the development and promotion of standards for parallel computing.
 
“Tensilica is a long-established leader in multicore technology, delivering unique solutions that enable both control plane and compute-intensive dataplane functions,” stated Steve Roddy, Tensilica’s vice president of product marketing and business development. “Tensilica customers today use multiple Tensilica processors for diverse functions such as audio offload, wireless baseband, image processing and general purpose control. We welcome the efforts and ambitions of the HSA to bring standards to the market that will greatly facilitate innovation in embedded applications.”
 
“Tensilica is a recognized industry pioneer in dataplane processor technology and multicore solutions, and we look forward to their valued contributions to the HSA Foundation,”,said Greg Stoner, vice president and managing director of the HSA Foundation. “Tensilica’s dataplane processors are widely used by the world semiconductor leaders, and by embracing the standards established by the HSA Foundation, can reduce time-to-market while improving both performance and power efficiency.”
Tensilica’s DPUs (dataplane processing units) are used in chip designs for smartphones, digital televisions, tablets, personal and notebook computers, and storage and networking applications. These DPUs are most often used to offload and accelerate the compute-intensive tasks from the main CPU. Therefore, developing an efficient heterogeneous system architecture is of critical importance to designers using Tensilica’s DPUs.
 
About Tensilica
Tensilica, Inc. is the leader in dataplane processor IP core licensing with over 200 licensees. Dataplane processors (DPUs) combine the best capabilities of DSPs and CPUs while delivering 10 to 100x the performance because they can be optimized using Tensilica’s automated design tools to meet specific and demanding signal processing performance targets. Tensilica’s DPUs power SOC designs at system OEMs and seven out of the top 10 semiconductor companies for designs in mobile wireless, telecom and network infrastructure, computing and storage, and home and auto entertainment. Tensilica offers standard cores and hardware/software solutions that can be used as is or easily customized by semiconductor companies and OEMs for added differentiation. For more information on Tensilica’s patented, benchmark-proven DPUs visit www.tensilica.com.
 
About the HSA Foundation
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a not-for-profit consortium for SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs whose goal is to make it easy to program for parallel computing. HSA members are building a heterogeneous compute ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, for combining scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance at low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation utilizing CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, and support for a diverse set of high-level programming languages, thereby creating the next foundation in general purpose computing. For more information, visit www.hsafoundation.com.

# # #

Tensilica is a registered trademark belonging to Tensilica, Inc. All other company and product names mentioned are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
 
Paula Jones – Director, Corporate Communications, Tensilica
Phone: 408-327-7343     Fax: 408-986-8919  Cell: 650-279-8997
Email: paula@tensilica.com  Web: www.tensilica.com  Facebook   Twitter
 

HSA Foundation Announces LG Electronics as Newest Member

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NEWS RELEASE
 

Contact:

Marco Peña

Edelman for HSA Foundation

           (650) 762-2861

marco.pena@edelman.com

 

HSA Foundation Announces LG Electronics as Newest Member

– OEM support combined with a wave of new members set the stage to bring power-efficient HSA processing capabilities to consumer electronics –

AUSTIN, Texas – Oct. XX, 2012 – The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation today announced that LG Electronics has joined as a member. LG’s diverse product portfolio and industry experience are valuable additions in helping HSA and its members reach common goals, ultimately benefiting consumers. With LG Electronics on board, new possibilities emerge as the fusion of HSA and LG’s current IP bring a whole new level of interactivity for consumers- from home appliances to entertainment systems, the HSA foundation acquires greater depth in the smartphone, tablets, TV, digital cameras, game consoles and even the E-reader space. This allows for an entire ecosystem of electronics that touch the lives of consumers throughout their day to be enhanced via a common Heterogeneous Systems Architecture.
The HSA Foundation continues working toward developing a single architecture specification that will unlock the performance and power efficiency of parallel computing engines found in many modern devices.  These specifications also open up a more simplified approach to software development in heterogeneous environments which will enable a broad range of programmers to drive richer user experiences into their applications.
“LG is known for bringing innovative products to market, and their decision to embrace the HSA vision reinforces the importance of driving and developing a standard across the industry,” said Phil Rogers, HSA Foundation President and AMD Corporate Fellow. “With HSA, computing becomes more power efficient, enabling technology companies like LG to create unique and compelling experiences for consumers at home, work and on the go.”
“We are evaluating the SoC core technology trend and looking at bringing innovative, competitive SoCs to market,” said Seung-Jong Choi, vice president of DTV SoC Department, SIC Lab, LG Electronics Inc. “Joining the HSA Foundation is one of the ways we can continue to innovate SoCs, and I am confident we will achieve fruitful results.”
HSA President, Phil Rogers, will be speaking at this year’s ARM TechCon, during the Sensor Integration and Improved User Experiences at Even Lower Power session on November 1, 2012.
Since its formation in June, the HSA Foundation has more than doubled its membership with new Founder, Promoter, Supporter, Contributor and Associate members that have joined the consortium.
Current Founder members

  • AMD
  • ARM
  • Imagination Technologies
  • MediaTek Inc.
  • Qualcomm
  • Samsung Electronics
  • Texas Instruments

Supporting Resources

 
About the HSA Foundation  
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a not-for-profit consortium for SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs whose goal is to make it easy to program for parallel computing. HSA members are building a heterogeneous compute ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, for combining scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance at low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation utilizing CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, and support for a diverse set of high-level programming languages, thereby creating the next foundation in general purpose computing.

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The HSA Foundation logo is a trademark of the Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

DMP Joins Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation to Contribute Its Expertise in 3D Graphics and Common Compute

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            DMP Joins Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation to Contribute Its Expertise in 3D Graphics and Common Compute

 
Tokyo, Japan– October30th, 2012 – Digital Media Professionals Inc. (DMP), a leading provider of 2D/3D graphics Intellectual Property (IP) cores, today announced it has joined to be new member and contributor to Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation. HSA targets to push standard based architecture and interface for common computing use cases between CPU and GPU for the effective and hardware accelerated performance and power consumption in next generation compute platforms.
 
By supporting HSA Foundation initiative DMP wants to accelerate and simplify the application development for the mobile GPGPU platforms to benefit heterogeneous architectures and computing which enables smooth user experience for computer vision, image processing and graphics intensive applications in small consumer devices.
 
“Heterogeneous architectures on mobile GPGPU platforms will greatly benefit users looking for a seamless graphics and compute experience from their electronic devices,” said Greg Stoner vice president and managing director of the HSA Foundation. “With DMP’s commitment to driving the HSA standard forward, the integration of their technology in next generation mobile, embedded and consumer electronic platforms will change the way consumers interact with their devices.”
 
“We are thrilled to join HSA foundation as an active contributor and look forward to working with consortium to push and accelerate the usage of standard heterogeneous architecture in next generation mobile, embedded and consumer devices,” said Tatsuo Yamamoto, CEO of DMP. “We see that supporting the HSA DMP can expand and deepen our touch for application development ecosystem and several vertical industries that will benefit by using DMP graphics IP core for next generation consumer devices.”
 
About the HSA Foundation  
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation is a not-for-profit consortium for SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, OSVs and ISVs whose goal is to make it easy to program for parallel computing. HSA members are building a heterogeneous compute ecosystem, rooted in industry standards, for combining scalar processing on the CPU with parallel processing on the GPU while enabling high bandwidth access to memory and high application performance at low power consumption. HSA defines interfaces for parallel computation utilizing CPU, GPU and other programmable and fixed function devices, and support for a diverse set of high-level programming languages, thereby creating the next foundation in general purpose computing. Learn more about HSA and the HSA Foundation at www.hsafoundation.com.
 
About DMP
Digital Media Professionals Inc. (DMP)(TOKYO:3652) develops industry leading 2D and 3D graphics solutions to global consumer electronics, mobile, embedded and automotive markets. Company has been founded at Tokyo, Japan in 2002 and is currently developing several graphics IP cores based on the open Khronos™ Group standards and DMP’s cutting edge 3D graphics technology DMP Maestro Technology.