The Art and Science of GPU and Multi-Core Programming

Abstract

This paper examines the computational programming issues that arise from the introduction of GPUs and multi-core computer systems. The discussions and analyses examine the implication of two principles (spatial and temporal locality) that provide useful metrics to guide programmers in designing and implementing efficient sequential and parallel application programs. Spatial and temporal locality represents a science of information flow and is relevant in the development of highly efficient computational programs. The art of high performance programming is to take combinations of these principles and unravel the bottlenecks and latencies associate with the architecture for each manufacturer computer system, and develop appropriate coding and/or task scheduling schemes to mitigate or eliminate these latencies.