VOBLA: A vehicle for optimized basic linear algebra

Ulysse Beaugnon, Alexey Kravets, Sven Van Haastregt, Riyadh Baghdadi, David Tweed, Javed Absar, Anton Lokhmotov

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

We present Vobla, a domain-specific language designed for programming linear algebra libraries. Vobla is compiled to Pencil, a domain independent intermediate language designed for efficient mapping to accelerator architectures such as GPGPUs. Pencil is compiled to efficient, platform-specific OpenCL code using techniques based on the polyhedral model. This approach addresses both the programmer productivity and performance portability concerns associated with accelerator programming. We demonstrate our approach by using Vobla to implement a BLAS library. We have evaluated the performance of OpenCL code generated using our compilation flow on ARM Mali, AMD Radeon, and AMD Opteron platforms. The generated code is currently on average 1.9× slower than highly hand-optimized OpenCL code, but on average 8.1× faster than straightforward OpenCL code. Given that the Vobla coding takes significantly less effort compared to hand-optimizing OpenCL code, we believe our approach leads to improved productivity and performance portability.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationLCTES 2014 - Proceedings of the 2014 SIGPLAN/SIGBED Conference on Languages, Compilers and Tools for Embedded Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages115-124
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781450328777
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Event2014 ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED Conference on Languages, Compilers and Tools for Embedded Systems, LCTES 2014 - Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Duration: Jun 12 2014Jun 13 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems (LCTES)

Conference

Conference2014 ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED Conference on Languages, Compilers and Tools for Embedded Systems, LCTES 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityEdinburgh
Period6/12/146/13/14

Keywords

  • BLAS
  • Domain-specific language
  • GPU
  • Linear algebra
  • Parallel
  • Sparse matrix

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software

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