PGI Release 2010 Enables Scientists and Engineers to Harness the Computational Power of GPUs

PGI Release 2010 Enables Scientists and Engineers to Harness the Computational
Power of GPUs
Latest compilers from The Portland Group extend support for the PGI
Accelerator Programming Model and PGI CUDA Fortran

PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Portland Group®, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, today announced that release
2010 of the PGI® line of high-performance parallelizing compilers and
development tools for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows will be available on
Tuesday, November 17. PGI 2010 is the first general release to include full
support for the PGI Accelerator Programming model v1.0 standard on x64
processor-based systems incorporating NVIDIA CUDA(1)-enabled Graphical
Processing Units (GPUs). In addition to supporting high-level programming of
accelerators using the PGI Accelerator programming model, the PGI Release 2010
also includes PGI CUDA Fortran, an explicit GPU programming model and
application programming interface (API) that gives expert programmers direct
control of all aspects of programming NVIDIA GPUs.

The PGI Accelerator programming model is a collection of compiler directives
used to specify regions of code in Fortran and C programs that can be
offloaded from a host CPU to an attached accelerator to enhance performance.
Applications optimized using the PGI Accelerator directives remain 100%
portable to other compilers and platforms, and execute on systems with or
without a GPU accelerator.
PGI 2010 offers full support for the PGI Accelerator programming model
including the following new features:
-- GPU device-resident data - the ability to define and leave data on the
GPU across accelerator regions and subroutine boundaries
-- Support for COMPLEX and DOUBLE COMPLEX data types in Fortran
-- Support for C structs and Fortran derived types
-- Automatic GPU-side loop unrolling for improved performance
-- Support for Accelerator regions nested within OpenMP parallel regions

-- Support for Linux, Mac OS X (including Snow Leopard) and Windows
(including Windows 7).

"Within five years, most HPC systems will include both x86 CPUs and
accelerators in some form," said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group.
"The PGI 2010 compilers will play a role in establishing accelerated computing
as the mainstream HPC architecture."

PGI CUDA Fortran includes a Fortran 95/03 compiler and tool chain for native
programming of NVIDIA GPUs using Fortran. CUDA Fortran subroutines can launch
and execute in parallel on the hundreds of cores in an NVIDIA GPU under
control of an x64 host CPU. Developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, PGI CUDA
Fortran extensions supported in the PGI 2010 Fortran 95/03 compiler enable HPC
developers to explicitly control all aspects of data movement, memory
utilization and computation on CUDA GPUs.

Additional new features in the PGI 2010 compilers and tools include support
for more Fortran 2003 incremental features, the latest EDG 4.1 C++ front-end
with enhanced GNU and Microsoft compatibility, OpenMP parallel programming
support for up to 256 cores, and AVX code generation. PGI 2010 also includes a
major update to the PGPROF performance profiler, which now supports
performance profiling of binary executables without re-compiling or any
special software privileges, uniform operation and features on Linux, Mac OS X
and Windows, support for PGI Accelerator and PGI CUDA Fortran GPU-side
performance statistics, and an updated graphical user interface. Finally, PGI
2010 supports the latest operating system releases including Red Hat Fedora
10/11, SuSE 11.1 and Ubuntu 9, Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7.

Enhancements in the PGI 2010 release of PGI Visual Fortran for Microsoft
Visual Studio include full support for the PGI Accelerator Programming model
and PGI CUDA Fortran on NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs, and the addition of a new
standalone version of the PGPROF performance profiler for x64 and GPUs with
support for the Common Compiler Feedback Format (CCFF). CCFF is a draft
standard published by PGI that defines what compiler information is stored and
how the information is formatted. CCFF enables HPC tools providers to offer
more and better information about optimizing performance.

More information about the PGI Accelerator Programming model is available
online at www.pgroup.com/accelerate. PGI CUDA Fortran information is
available separately at www.pgroup.com/cudafortran. Evaluation copies of the
new PGI 2010 compilers are available from The Portland Group web site at
www.pgroup.com. Registration is required.

About The Portland Group
The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, is the
premier supplier of high-performance Fortran, C, and C++ compilers and tools
for high-end computing systems and x64 and x86 processor-based workstations,
servers, and clusters. PGI® products are used widely by engineers, researchers
and scientists in high-performance computing (HPC), the field of technical
computing engaged in the modeling and simulation of complex processes, such as
ocean modeling, weather forecasting, seismic analysis, bioinformatics and
other areas. PGI compilers, which convert software programs into the binary
instructions that computers understand, are recognized in the HPC community
for delivering world-class performance across a wide spectrum of applications
and benchmarks, and they are referenced regularly as the industry standard for
performance and reliability.

Further information on The Portland Group products can be found at
www.pgroup.com, by calling Sales at (503) 682-2806, or by email to
sales@pgroup.com.

About STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics is a global leader serving customers across the spectrum of
electronics applications with innovative semiconductor solutions. ST aims to
be the undisputed leader in multimedia convergence and power applications
leveraging its vast array of technologies, design expertise and combination of
intellectual property portfolio, strategic partnerships and manufacturing
strength. In 2008, the Company's net revenues were $9.84 billion. Further
information on ST can be found at www.st.com.

All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong
to their respective companies.

(1) CUDA(TM) is the architecture of the NVIDIA line of GPUs.

SOURCE STMicroelectronics

Michael Markowitz, STMicroelectronics, Inc., +1-212-821-8959,
michael.markowitz@st.com