NDAK14008U Programming Massively Parallel Hardware (PMPH)
MSc Programme in Computer Science
MSc Programme in Bioinformatics
The aim of the course is to teach students how to efficiently and effectively exploit parallel hardware, which is now mainstream (i.e., how to quickly write programs that run fast).
The course reviews the levels at which hardware exposes parallelism, the constraints at each level, the main tradeoffs and the potential bottlenecks, and studies the critical components of parallel hardware: processor, memory (cache) hierarchy and interconnect networks.
The course introduces the map-reduce programming model, which is used to fully express available parallelism, and to reason about asymptotic properties of parallel programs (in terms of work and depth). The course then introduces several lower-level programming interfaces, such as OpenMP, OpenCL, and gives practical instructions to implementing, testing, and optimizing parallel programs written in these interfaces.
Finally, the course highlights how hardware differences influence the way in which the program is optimized, and studies several composible code transformations that have been found effective to implement parallelism. These can be seen as recipees for optimizing the application's degree of parallelism and locality of reference.
Knowledge
- tthe main differences in various parallel hardware, and how
these influence the way the code is optimized/tuned.
- the (in)correctness of (specific instances of) loop
parallelization and related optimizations.
- how to guide, in specific instances, the application of such optimizations, and the (data-sensitive) tradeoffs that are exploited.
Skills
- implement parallel programs using different programming
interfaces, such as OpenMP, OpenCL
- test, profile, and tune the programs to efficiently take advantage of the parallel hardware (multicore, GPU).
Competences
- for a given application and parallel hardware, identify an effective parallelization solution.
The course does not use a textbook, but instead
provides tutorials, scientific papers, and selected material from
several books (available from the course pages).
For example, several hardware-related topics were selected from the
book Parallel Computer Organization and Design, by Michel
Dubois, Murali Annavaram and Per Stenstrom, ISBN
978-521-88675-8. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
- Category
- Hours
- Exam
- 1
- Exercises
- 61
- Lectures
- 32
- Preparation
- 48
- Project work
- 64
- Total
- 206
As
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- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
- Continuous assessmentFour individual assignments (32%), group project (report) with individual presentation (68%).
- Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
several internal examiners
- Re-exam
Resubmission of (i) the (missing) assignments (25%) and (ii) the (missing) project extended with additional tasks (50%), and (iii) a 30 minutes oral examination (25%).
Criteria for exam assesment
see learning goals
Course information
- Language
- English
- Course code
- NDAK14008U
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Level
- Full Degree Master
- Duration
- 1 block
- Placement
- Block 1
- Schedule
- A
- Course capacity
- No limit
- Continuing and further education
- Study board
- Study Board of Mathematics and Computer Science
Contracting department
- Department of Computer Science
Course responsibles
- Cosmin Eugen Oancea (13-6b777b757176367769766b6d69486c7136737d366c73)