Hi I'm a lecturer in Solid Mechanics with Mech Eng Dept at University of Bristol, UK. My research interests are in computational mechanics.
I'm preparing a proposal to EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council - a major UK government funding body for engineering, including computer science and IT) under HPC software development call 2010/2011. Here's a link to the description of this call: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/open/hpcsoftwaredev/Pages/default1.aspx I propose to develop an optimising compiler with MPI/OpenMP support for ia64 FreeBSD platform. Please see my justification at the end. PathScale (Christopher Bergstrom) expressed an interest in my proposal, in principle. NAG (Numerical Algorithms Group, nag.co.uk) - a major UK HPC player, who currently provide user support on HeCTOR (http://www.hector.ac.uk/), UK national supercomputer - have been very supportive so far. I'm writing to ask if Open64 team would be interested, in principle, to collaborate on this proposal. In any case I'd be very grateful for any feedback. Justification: ia64 accounts for only 5 system in the top500 list. This is mainly due to compliers unable to generate efficient code for VLIW (EPIC). (Of course, there are other issues to do with marketing, etc. but this in beyond the point). If such compiler, with MPI/OpenMP support, were available, this would significantly speed-up HPC on ia64 platform. In terms of scientific outputs - clearly all current HPC codes we use will benefit. However, some specific coding guidelines for ia64 might be developed to help the compiler produce efficient code. A specific engineering application, which will be used to benchmark performance is a set of multi-scale fracture codes we have at Bristol. The codes include a finite element part (floating point) and a cellular automata part (integer). I'm interested in simulating very large models, i.e. using large memories, as well as speeding up the execution. FreeBSD (or, for that matter *BSD systems) represent at the very least a viable alternative to linux. Things like better security and more predictable and systematic development and release schedule, and more permissible BSD licence (compared to GPLv3) might make FreeBSD more attractive for HPC in future. I think having an alternative to linux is beneficial to academia and HPC industry. many thanks anton -- Anton Shterenlikht Room 2.6, Queen's Building Mech Eng Dept Bristol University University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK Tel: +44 (0)117 331 5944 Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Palm PDK Hot Apps Program offers developers who use the Plug-In Development Kit to bring their C/C++ apps to Palm for a share of $1 Million in cash or HP Products. Visit us here for more details: http://p.sf.net/sfu/dev2dev-palm _______________________________________________ Open64-devel mailing list Open64-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/open64-devel
