Thanks, Erik. Yes, LLVM indeed supports Power arch, which should be helpful ..

Best wishes,
Gaurav 

----------------------------------
Please excuse errors and terseness. This message was sent using a mobile phone.


> On Sep 2, 2016, at 8:56 AM, Erik Schnetter <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Gaurav
> 
> Yes, I find this quite interesting! Here at Perimeter I'm often involved in 
> some "random" project, and using higher-than-regular precision is sometimes 
> convenient. Using the GMP library or a double-double representation has 
> serious drawbacks.
> 
> I'm involved in the Julia language <http://julialang.org>. We've been 
> discussing a native type Float128, and I'd be happy to push for a native 
> implementation on Power 9.
> 
> However, I have not run Julia on Power yet; I don't know whether there are 
> any problems. Julia uses LLVM for just-in-time code generation, so if Power 
> is supported by LLVM, we should be home free.
> 
> -erik
> 
> 
>> On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 8:27 AM, Gaurav Khanna <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello Folks —
>> 
>> Just an update on this (rather old) message (below). Hardware support for 
>> quadruple-precision floating-point (128-bit) will be available on the Power9 
>> processor next year: 
>> http://forwardthinking.pcmag.com/show-reports/347472-amd-ibm-and-intel-point-the-way-to-new-processors
>> 
>> If any of you find this functionality useful, or even generally support the 
>> idea, feel free to drop me a line. I will forward it to the team at IBM that 
>> fought for this to be included. Thanks.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> Gaurav
>> 
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> GAURAV KHANNA, (508) 910 6605, http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu
>> Professor, Physics Department, College of Engineering
>> Assoc. Director, Center for Scientific Computing & Visualization Research
>> Graduate Program Director, Engg & Appl. Sci. Ph.D. Program 
>> University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
>> 
>> "Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steven Wright
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jul 3, 2012, at 4:06 PM, Gaurav Khanna <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Dear Colleague --
>>> 
>>> I hope you are doing well. I'm requesting some feedback here on the 
>>> potential need for high-precision numerics in your research work in the 
>>> next few years. By high-precision, I'm referring to higher than double 
>>> floating-point precision (64-bit or ~14 decimal digits) i.e. what is 
>>> traditionally known as quadruple-precision (128-bit or ~30 decimal digits) 
>>> and perhaps even higher. Today, one can easily emulate such a high level of 
>>> precision through software libraries, but these often perform an 
>>> order-of-magnitude slower than full hardware-supported, double-precision 
>>> computations.
>>> 
>>> I know that in some subareas of our research community high-precision 
>>> numerics are going to be necessary and are already in use in some projects. 
>>> But there may be other areas as well. Long duration simulations or 
>>> computations utilizing higher-order methods (pseudo-spectral etc.) are 
>>> likely to benefit from high-precision numerics. There may also be some 
>>> benefits in the context of studying some borderline ill-conditioned 
>>> problems; and not necessarily only cases where very high accuracy is 
>>> desirable. Please take a somewhat farsighted view and consider this 
>>> question in the context of your own research. 
>>> 
>>> The main reason I'm inquiring is that I'm engaged with IBM R&D on this 
>>> issue, and they are considering developing a processor that has 
>>> hardware-level support for quadruple floating-point precision. Currently, 
>>> they are developing a POWER based server with an FPGA-accelerator that is 
>>> tightly-coupled to the main CPU. The FPGA could have the option of serving 
>>> as a high-precision numerics accelerator at the hardware level. In fact, 
>>> such a system is already operating in a number of IBM labs. 
>>> 
>>> At this stage, it is crucial to provide IBM with some feedback on the 
>>> "market" for such a product, so that it can actually advance past the 
>>> research development stage. Therefore, I'm requesting some feedback from 
>>> you on this matter. Do you see yourself using quadruple-precision numerics 
>>> in the next few years? If so, could you briefly explain why? Would you be 
>>> interested in such a server / HPC? Do you know others who could be 
>>> interested? Please feel free to forward this note to others. 
>>> 
>>> Thank you for your time.
>>> 
>>> Best wishes,
>>> Gaurav
>>> 
>>> -----------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> GAURAV KHANNA
>>> UMass Dartmouth, Physics
>>> (508) 910 6605
>>> http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/
>>> 
>>> "Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steven Wright
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Erik Schnetter <[email protected]>
> http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/personal/eschnetter/
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