EdLambda on 24th March : FP meets high performance!

[Rob Stewart]

Hi folks,

This months EdLambda talk is in two weeks time: Tuesday 24th March at 7pm at The Outhouse. Artem Shinkarov will talk about his work on vectorising a high performance array-based functional language called Single Assignment C (SaC).

Title: Automatic data layout transformations enabling SIMD vectorisation

Abstract:

Usually programming languages use a fixed layout for logical data

structures in physical memory. Such a static mapping often has a

negative effect on usability of vector units. In the talk we will

consider a compiler for a programming language that allows every

data structure in a program to have its own data layout.

Such an approach comes with a number of challenges. First, the

number of theoretically possible data layout configurations per

program is very large. We need to choose the one that will lead

to the best program vectorisation. Secondly, we have to make sure

that the chosen configuration is sound. Finally, the code we

generate has to encode desired vectorisation preferably in a

portable way.

Our solution lies in using types to encode data layouts. We use a

type system to verify data layout consistency in programs. Type

inference techniques allow us to solve a data layout

reconstruction problem. We prove that type-implied

transformations preserve semantics of the original programs and

we demonstrate significant performance improvements when

targeting SIMD-capable architectures.

[Rob Stewart]

Reminder folks, this talk's happening tonight (Tuesday) at 7pm at The Outhouse.