This is an advanced undergraduate/postgraduate course on compiler optimization for multi-core
architectures. The course will cover the following broad topics.
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What are multi-core architectures
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Issues involved in writing code for the multi-core architectures
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How to develop software for these architectures
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What are the program optimization techniques
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How to build some of these techniques in compilers
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OpenMP and parallel programming libraries
Contents:
Introduction to parallel computers: Instruction Level Parallelism (ILP) vs. Thread
Level Parallelism (TLP); performance issues: brief introduction to cache hierarchy and
communication latency.
Shared memory multiprocessors: general architecture and the problem
of cache coherence; synchronization primitives: atomic primitives; locks: TTS, tickets, array;
barriers: central and tree; performance implications in shared memory programs.
Chip
multiprocessors: why CMP (Moore's law, wire delay) ; shared L2 vs. tiled CMP; core
complexity; power/performance; snoopy coherence: invalidate vs. update, MSI, MESI, MOESI,
MOSI;memory consistency models: SC; chip multiprocessor case studies: Intel Montecito and
dual core Pentium 4, IBM power4, Sun Niagara.
Introduction to program optimization: overview of parallelism, shared memory programming;
introduction to OpenMP; data flow analysis, pointer analysis, alias analysis, data dependence
analysis, solving data dependence equations (integer linear programming problem); loop
optimizations; memory hierarchy issues in code optimization.
Operating system issues for multiprocessing: need for pre-emptive OS, scheduling techniques:
usual OS scheduling techniques, threads, distributed scheduler, multiprocessor scheduling , gang
scheduling; communication between processes, message boxes, shared memory; sharing issues
and synchronization, sharing memory and other structures.
Sharing I/O devices, distributed
semaphores, monitors spin locks, implementation techniques for multi-cores; case studies from
applications: digital signal processing, image processing, speech processing.
