TARRYTOWN, NY, April 7, 2016 – The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation today announced the results of a collaborative project sponsored by General Processor Technologies (GPT) and other industry developers to create open software bridges that enable quicker, easier programming of high-performance parallel computing devices in heterogeneous ecosystems.
The goal of the project was to overcome barriers to open parallel computing presented by proprietary tools that made interoperability historically problematic. This latest project was a key proof-point to achieving that interoperability goal.
HSA Foundation, in conjunction with GPT and Parmance, developed a BRIG (binary format) language front-end to GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) that is a binary representation of HSAIL (HSA Intermediate Language), a virtual instruction set specified by HSA for parallel computing. That front-end, known as gccbrig, was announced at the Linley Processor Conference last fall and is now available at the Foundation’s GitHub site: https://github.com/HSAFoundation/gccbrig.
“We’re delighted to have sponsored the gccbrig project and to be involved in creating a foundational tools ecosystem for HSA,” said Dr. John Glossner, HSA Foundation president and GPT CEO.
Glossner added that the Foundation is also actively assisting software developers by making their parallel compute jobs easier and more accessible; the cost of an efficient HSA-based heterogeneous parallel programming stack is now greatly reduced for all compute platform vendors with GCC backends already available for their devices.
“By defining interfaces for parallel computation using CPUs, GPUs, DSPs and other programmable and fixed function devices while supporting a diverse set of high-level programming languages, we’re creating the foundation for next-generation, high-performance, general-purpose computing,” said Glossner.
“Heterogeneous processors may benefit from kernel agent support and the vector/SIMD (Single Instruction/Multiple Data) optimizations in GCC. gccbrig taps into the years of hard work that have gone into the GNU compiler to provide efficient generic and target-specific optimizations such as auto vectorization. These optimizations help improve the performance portability of HSAIL programs when targeting various popular architectures, such as AMD CPUs with their SIMD instruction set extensions, and several DSP/ISPs,” said primary gccbrig developer Pekka Jääskeläinen, CEO of Parmance.
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.
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter and Facebook.
About GPT
General Processor Technologies (GPT) is the wholly owned subsidiary of Beijing-based Hua Xia GPT. GPT designs and licenses embedded HSA-compatible processors for use world-wide. Best known for building multithreaded vector Digital Signal Processors (DSP) for wireless communications, GPT also licenses cores for use in machine vision, Internet of Things (IoT), Machine-to-Machine (M2M), consumer electronics, and deep learning. GPT’s patent-pending Unity architecture allows customers to optimize cores for a range of applications and easily integrates into heterogeneous systems providing power-efficient computing and software reuse. For more information, please visit www.generalprocessortech.com.
About Parmance
Parmance, based in Tampere, Finland, provides a wide variety of software engineering services – some of these include compiler development, runtime development and performance engineering. The company’s specialists have extensive expertise with heterogeneous parallel computing, processor architectures, instruction-set simulators, and compilers. For more information, log on to www.parmance.com.
Contact:
Neal Leavitt
Leavitt Communications
(760) 639-2900
neal@leavcom.com
Category Archives: Newsflash
Heterogeneous System Architecture: A New Computing Platform Infrastructure
EE Times recently published a comprehensive story on heterogeneous system architecture by Peter Glaskowsky. The article also reviews in detail a book entitled, Heterogeneous System Architecture — A New Compute Platform Infrastructure. Edited by Wen-Mei W. Hwu of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the book is a combination of background, theory, and practical examples for using each of HSA’s many features. Read more: http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329321.
HSA Foundation President John Glossner Delivering Keynote at ARCS 2016
NUREMBERG, GERMANY, March 29, 2016 – The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation announced that Foundation President Dr. John Glossner will deliver a keynote address at ARCS 2016 – International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems, being held April 4-7 in Nuremberg, Germany. The focus of the 2016 conference will be on Heterogeneity in Architectures and Systems – from Embedded to HPC.
In his talk, Dr. Glossner will discuss the HSA computing platform infrastructure including features/advantages across computing platforms – from mobile and tablets to desktops to HPC and servers. The talk will also focus on technical issues solved by HSA technologies and important new developments that are bringing the industry closer to broad adoption of heterogeneous computing.
WHO:
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation, a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, Operating System Vendors (OSVs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive
WHAT:
HSA Foundation keynote: “Heterogeneous Systems Era” at ARCS 2016
WHEN:
Thursday, April 7, 9:30 AM (UTC+2)
WHERE:
ARCS 2016: Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg
WHY:
- Learn why we need to bring compute app portability to heterogeneous platforms
- Glean more about the HSA vision – discover how devices, with the eventual adoption of heterogeneous computing, will be able to run applications at much higher performance and lower power
- How HSA adds value to the SoC and the HSA ecosystem
- How end users benefit from HSA
For more information about ARCS 2016, visit: www3.cs.fau.de/arcs2016.
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.
Follow the HSA Foundation on Twitter.
Contact:
Neal Leavitt
Leavitt Communications
(760) 639-2900
neal@leavcom.com
HSA Foundation President John Glossner Delivering Keynote at WInnComm 2016
RESTON, VA, March 8, 2016 – The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation announced that Foundation President Dr. John Glossner will be delivering a keynote address at the Wireless Innovation Forum Conference on Wireless Communications Technologies and Software Defined Radio (WInnComm 2016), being held March 15-17 in Reston, VA. Dr. Glossner will share important new developments that are bringing the industry closer to broad adoption of heterogeneous computing. He will also elaborate on why HSA will be at the heart of the high performance and low power chipsets that will drive the next wave of wireless innovation.
WHO:
The HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) Foundation, a non-profit consortium of SoC IP vendors, OEMs, academia, SoC vendors, Operating System Vendors (OSVs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), whose goal is making programming for parallel computing easy and pervasive.
WHAT:
HSA Foundation keynote: “Multicore Processors for Heterogeneous Systems Era.”
WHEN:
Wednesday, March 16, 8:40 AM EST
WHERE:
Sheraton Reston, Reston, VA.
WHY:
- Learn why we need to bring compute app portability to heterogeneous platforms
- Glean more about the HSA vision — discover how devices, with the eventual adoption of heterogeneous computing, will be able to run applications at much higher performance and lower power
- How HSA adds value to the SoC and the HSA ecosystem
- How end users benefit from HSA
- What makes the HSA Intermediate Language (HSAIL) so unique
- Get the latest HSA product updates from HSA Foundation member companies
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.
HSA Announces Publication of New Guide to Heterogeneous System Architecture
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
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
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 at Linley Processor Conference
Please join us for the session “Heterogeneous Systems Architecture:
Coming Soon to a Platform Near You”, which will take on Tuesday, October 6th @ 10:50pm-12:30pm PT. Jim Nicholas, Vice President MIPS Business Operations, Imagination Technologies, on behalf of the HSA Foundation will describe HSA, the HSA Foundation and its work to date.
HSA Foundation Launches New Era of Pervasive, Energy-Efficient Computing with HSA 1.0 Specification Release
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:
- Access the specification and learn more about HSA by visiting www.hsafoundation.com
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
AMD Announces Heterogeneous C++ AMP Language for Developers
First Open Source C++ Implementation to See Broad Availability Across Linux, Windows and Other Platforms
SUNNYVALE, CA, Aug 26, 2014 (Marketwired via COMTEX) — AMD AMD, +0.48% in collaboration with Microsoft(R) MSFT, -0.28% today announced the release of C++ AMP version 1.2 — an open source C++ compiler which implements version 1.2 of the open specification for C++ AMP, available on both Linux and Windows for the first time. The release represents another step forward toward AMD’s goal of supporting cross-platform solutions, multiple programming languages and continued contributions to the open source community. The tool, which leverages Clang and LLVM, accelerates productivity and ease of use for developers wishing to harness the full power of modern heterogeneous platforms spanning servers, PCs and handheld devices.
“AMD has a consistent track record of enriching the developer experience, and we’re proud to make the first open source implementation of C++ AMP available to enable greater performance and more power-efficient applications,” said Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, Heterogeneous Applications and Solutions, AMD. “The cross-platform release is another step in strengthening AMD’s developer solutions, allowing for increased productivity and accelerated applications through shared physical memory across the CPU and GPU on both Linux and Windows.”
“AMD continues to deliver excellent developer tools for heterogeneous programming. Partnering with AMD to deliver C++ AMP to the Linux and Open Source communities was a natural step for Microsoft as we work to improve the performance and developer experience on modern computing platforms,” said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft.
C++ AMP version 1.2 enables C++ developers to accelerate applications across a broad set of hardware and software configurations by supporting three outputs:
— Khronos Group OpenCL(1), supporting AMD CPU/APU/GPU, Intel CPU/APU, NVIDIA GPU, Apple Mac OS X and other OpenCL compliant platforms; — Khronos Group SPIR, supporting AMD CPU/APU/GPU, Intel CPU/APU and future SPIR compliant platforms; and — HSA Foundation HSAIL, supporting AMD APU and future HSA compliant platforms.
Akey performance feature of version 1.2 of the open source C++ AMP specification is support for shared physical memory, which greatly simplifies sharing of data between the CPU and GPU on heterogeneous platforms. Heterogeneous platforms built on the new spec allow programmers to benefit from minimized overhead of expensive data copies and pointer updates when accelerating applications.
Supporting Resources
— Access latest C++ AMP compiler source code here — View the Open C++ AMP specification version 1.2 here — For more information about Clang and LLVM, visit their website.
About AMD AMD AMD, +0.48% designs and integrates technology that powers millions of intelligent devices, including personal computers, tablets, game consoles and cloud servers that define the new era of surround computing. AMD solutions enable people everywhere to realize the full potential of their favorite devices and applications to push the boundaries of what is possible. For more information, visit www.amd.com.
(1) OpenCL and the OpenCL logo are trademarks of Apple, Inc. and used by permission of Khronos.
Contact: Kristen Lisa AMD Public Relations (512) 602-6020 kristen.lisa@amd.com
SOURCE: Advanced Micro Devices