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Performance tuning on IBM RS/6000 POWER2 systems

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Applied Parallel Computing Industrial Computation and Optimization (PARA 1996)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1184))

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Abstract

This tutorial describes the algorithms and architecture approach to produce high-performance codes for numerically intensive computations. In this approach, for a given computation, we design algorithms so that they perform optimally when run on a target machine-in this case, the new POWER2™machines from the RS/6000 family of RISC processors. The algorithmic features that we emphasize are functional parallelism, cache/register blocking, algorithmic prefetching, and loop unrolling. The architectural features of the POWER2 machine that we describe and that lead to high performance are multiple functional units, high bandwidth between registers, cache, and memory, a large number of fixed- and floating-point registers, and a large cache and TLB (translation lookaside buffer). The paper gives BLAS examples that illustrate how the algorithms and architectural features interplay to produce high performance codes. These routines are included in ESSL (Engineering and Scientific Subroutine Library); an overview of ESSL is also given in the paper.

This paper is a condensation of [3] and is a formal presentation of the concepts presented in the tutorial.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, P.O. Box 218, 10598, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA

    R. C. Agarwal, F. G. Gustavson & M. Zubair

Authors
  1. R. C. Agarwal
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  2. F. G. Gustavson
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  3. M. Zubair
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Editor information

Jerzy Waśniewski Jack Dongarra Kaj Madsen Dorte Olesen

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Agarwal, R.C., Gustavson, F.G., Zubair, M. (1996). Performance tuning on IBM RS/6000 POWER2 systems. In: Waśniewski, J., Dongarra, J., Madsen, K., Olesen, D. (eds) Applied Parallel Computing Industrial Computation and Optimization. PARA 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1184. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62095-8_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62095-8_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-62095-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49643-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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