Designing a static performance model and code generation for vector accelerators and parallel patterns

• Entwurf eines statischen Leistungsmodells und Codegenerierung für Vektorbeschleuniger und Parallele Muster

Hilgers, Tom; Müller, Matthias S. (Thesis advisor); Lankes, Stefan (Thesis advisor); Burak, Semih (Consultant); Schmitz, Adrian (Consultant)

Aachen : RWTH Aachen University (2023)
Bachelor Thesis

Bachelorarbeit, RWTH Aachen University, 2023

Abstract

Modern supercomputer systems have a distributed and heterogeneous structure that incorporates various compute units such as CPUs, GPUs, and other accelerators. The Parallel Pattern Language (PPL) enables the hardware-independent programming of such systems with parallel patterns and generates globally optimized code using the Roofline performance model. This thesis aims to extend the PPL to support Vector Accelerators (VAs), which offer a higher energy efficiency than the most common compute units. The Roofline model is extended by considering the special architectural features of VAs, which achieves an accuracy of ∼80% to 99%. The PPL components are analyzed regarding the necessary modifications for VA code generation. Generating functional code requires limited changes to the code generator component. Increasing the efficiency of data transfers in this code necessitates changes to the frontend language and intermediate representation. These proposals are partially implemented in a proof-of-concept that is capabable of generating functional and correct code for VAs. This code is evaluated to identify potential performance improvements.

Institutions

• IT Center [022000]
• Department of Computer Science [120000]
• Chair of Computer Science 12 (High Performance Computing) [123010]