Category Archives: Press Release Archive

HSA Foundation Announces Results of Innovative Open Source Project

Posted on by

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

HSA Foundation President John Glossner Delivering Keynote at ARCS 2016

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.

###

Dr. John Glossner Elected President of the HSA Foundation

Posted on by

AUSTIN, TX, November 04, 2015 – The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation today announced that Dr. John Glossner has been named president. Glossner currently serves as CEO of General Processor Technologies.
The HSA Foundation has had from inception the vision of inclusive computing supporting processors beyond just CPUs and GPUs. The appointment of Glossner, with his background in heterogeneous DSP architectures, reaffirms HSA’s commitment to that vision. Glossner also previously served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Wireless Innovation Forum.
“I’m honored to help move the HSA Foundation toward the realization of our members’ shared vision of a unified heterogeneous system architecture,” said Glossner. “I look forward to working with all the member companies and appreciate their tremendous support for the Foundation.”
In addition to the appointment of a new Foundation president, there have been a number of other key developments this year. Last month the Foundation 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 intended to support HSA and meet any customer-focused technology developed by HSA.
HSA is a standardized platform design that unlocks the performance and power efficiency of the parallel computing engines found in most modern electronic devices. 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. The Foundation also released the v1.0 specification in March.
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.
Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2015/11/3/11G070454/Images/HSAFJohnGlossner-ea39abe42b1ba6b583663d54964c7d8f.jpg

HSA Foundation Members Preview Plans for Heterogeneous Platforms

Posted on by

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.
##

HSA Foundation Launches New Era of Pervasive, Energy-Efficient Computing with HSA 1.0 Specification Release

Posted on by

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
 

AMD Announces Heterogeneous C++ AMP Language for Developers

Posted on by

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

Tech Giants and Leading National Labs join the HSA Foundation

Posted on by

 

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.

Bringing C++AMP Beyond Windows via CLANG and LLVM

Posted on by

We are happy to report after some great work of MultiCoreWare in conduction with support from AMD and Microsoft today we are releasing a  C++ AMP compiler based on CLANG/LLVM so we can bring C++ AMP  to multiple platforms.  We want to bring this out early so we could work with the community to make sure we get there input prior to make this 1.0.  So we calling all developers who are looking for heterogeneous C++ compiler to help with finding bug, driving feature, creating optimization as well building applications and libraries drive new class of applications.
You can get access to the compiler at the Bitbucket repository link:
https://bitbucket.org/multicoreware/cppamp-driver/
We also have Samples:
https://bitbucket.org/multicoreware/cxxamp_sandbox
FEATURES:
* Compiles C++AMP to OpenCL C  and Khronos Group Provisional SPIR 1.2 for Linux. Works across major GPU platforms.
* Leverages GMAC for CPU-GPU synchronization on non-HSA GPUs.
TODOs/Ongoing works:
* Fix SPIR code generation issue. Right now system headers do not flow thru SPIR path and that causes host code to fail compilation.
* HSAIL code generation and HSA-optimized layout
* Passing MS C++AMP conformance suite
* Async API
* Better address space support — right now small changes to user code are required when taking/passing a pointer to local memory buffers. See samples for details.
* Merge into official Clang main line
 
Remember C++ AMP already has rich set of libraries which Microsoft has released under Apache License.

  1. C++ AMP Algorithms Library (STL-style Algorithms)
  2. C++ AMP RNG Library (Random Number Generator)
  3. C++ AMP FFT Library (Fast Fourier Transform)
  4. C++ AMP BLAS Library (Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines)
  5. C++ AMP LAPACK Library (Linear Algebra Package)