Phil Rogers, amd heterogeneous system chief architect, preached HSA

Guide: Heterogeneous computing is widely regarded as the most effective way to improve the performance of processors after multi-core architecture, through heterogeneous programming, developers and software companies can achieve the processing effects that previously could not be met by the CPU and even new fields, and bring new user experiences, such as face recognition and HD image anti-shake processing. With the heterogeneous systems architecture (HSA), developers can make full use of the GPU's potential and significantly reduce programming difficulty, and can be transplanted on PCs, tablets, and smartphones through simple changes and re-compilation. On July 6, June this year, AMD, arm, imagination, MTK, AND Ti jointly announced the HSA Foundation to promote the popularization of HSA and cross-platform applications.

[Csdn report] In July 11, amd Academician Phil Rogers appeared in the Report Hall of the institute of Computing Science and Technology of the Chinese Emy of sciences, sharing the broad prospects of HSA for Heterogeneous Computing and programming for field scholars, developers and graduate students. Phil has made significant contributions to the R & D of the radeon series of graphics cards over the past decade of his work at ATI. After Joining AMD, Phil focused on greatly reducing the running of various modern applications.ProgramRequired power consumption, and served as the chief architect of heterogeneous system architecture and the president of the heterogeneous system architecture Foundation.

Phil Rogers, amd heterogeneous system Chief Architect

After years of development, AMD's heterogeneous system architecture has become better. AMD's HSA architecture allows for On-chip data sharing between CPUs and GPUs, simplifying programming, this eliminates the latency, efficiency, and power consumption problems caused by data transmission between different components in traditional heterogeneous systems. The two computer systems, memory and cache, are designed to achieve the convergence of heterogeneous systems. This architecture achieves the real collaboration between CPU and GPU, and fundamentally changes the components that show and compute the two relationships between efficiency and power consumption from the hardware. In terms of technological evolution, the unified scheduling of GPU tasks and QoS Assurance are gradually completed.

To address the fear of traditional programmers for heterogeneous programming, especially GPU programming, through HSA, amd tries to make programming for heterogeneous applications as easy as traditional CPU programming. This software system allows application developers to abandon their dependencies on previous drivers, directly go to GPU programming as required, or get better system performance through third-party and open-source middleware. The implementation of JIT greatly reduces the dependence on GPU underlying programming.

More importantly, AMD made public this architecture in a standardized manner. Through the establishment of a non-profit HSA Foundation, we can reasonably drive the development of heterogeneous systems and their programming. At the amd Developer Conference (AFDS) in December, AMD, arm, imagination, MTK, AND Ti jointly announced the official work of the Foundation. The Foundation strives to develop together. Through a unified programming model, heterogeneous computing can achieve interoperability between different platforms on servers, PCs, mobile terminals, and other devices. In the next few years, with the gradual maturity of the HSA architecture and the launch of related products from various manufacturers, we can foresee that more differentiated applications will emerge on the above platforms. These applications will fundamentally change the application homogeneity caused by the homogeneity of operating systems and hardware platforms, and bring a lot of business opportunities and enrich the user experience. Through the heterogeneous architecture HSA programming, software companies and developers can achieve a lot of computing resources and computing performance that were not available in the original CPU architecture, thus giving birth to a large number of differentiated applications, such as face recognition, virtual implementation, gesture control, full-day computing, HD image processing, security, cloud computing search, and other fields) the misunderstanding of computing applications in a specific field can truly achieve wide application, rational application, differentiated application, and high-quality application.

Phil said: From the programming point of view, the heterogeneous computing HSA architecture also strives to make traditional opencl programming easier. In the end, common programmers can also use Java, C ++, and so on for heterogeneous programming. In AMD's plan, AMD will support more languages such as Microsoft's c ++ and open-source projects to lower the threshold, such as using aparapi tools and bolt libraries, at the same time, Java and C ++ support is introduced through the support of these tools and libraries. More open-source applications are also supported by HSA, such as the heterogeneous versions of opencv. It should be pointed out that HSA is not a patent of Apu. It also enjoys improved efficiency and performance for development users pursuing higher performance of independent graphics cards.

In June, amd just released the second generation Apu product (Trinity), and plans to release the Third Generation Apu product (Kaveri) based on the HSA architecture in next June, so that the CPU/GPU can share the unified virtual memory space, it also supports cache consistency between different parts of heterogeneous systems. This change greatly improves the performance and power consumption ratio of APU devices. Traditional DIY users, without emphasizing the graphics performance of large 3D games, can even discard the requirement that previous computers must be equipped with independent graphics cards. AMD is dedicated to building a heterogeneous computing ecosystem around the world, and more applications are emerging in China, such as storm player and GPU-Based Graphics Processing Software musemage, in open-source projects such as VLC, x264, gimp, and handbrake. These applications can see the performance improvement caused by heterogeneous computing.

In the future, the HSA Foundation will help alliance members further promote integration with tablets and smartphones. "With HSA, developers can develop cross-platform applications," Phil said. This means developers only need to make simple changes and recompile, applications can be transplanted between tablets, smartphones, and PCs. As a typical representative of mobile device hardware providers, arm's mobile graphics processor (such as arm mali604) has provided complete support for opencl. Internet and terminal applications are booming in China, and heterogeneous computing is undoubtedly a path of innovation for companies that are struggling to find their own differentiated applications.

In his speech, Phil focused on face detection at the technical level. Memory cached explained the performance improvement brought about by heterogeneous computing. Many developers engaged in related applications were enlightened. After the speech, Phil communicated with the audience. He encouraged developers to familiarize themselves with heterogeneous programming, embrace the opportunities brought about by heterogeneous computing, and develop innovative and truly valuable applications.

According to Chu Hanjin, director of AMD China's technology development and cooperation, in May this year, as one of the plans to promote Heterogeneous Computing, Tsinghua University Press published a Chinese translation of opencl Heterogeneous Computing in conjunction with the Institute of software of the Chinese Emy of sciences, this is the first Chinese book to introduce opencl in detail. The publication of this book provides Chinese developers with an authoritative teaching material and reference material in the heterogeneous computing field, it is of great significance to promote the popularization of Heterogeneous Computing in China. With the publication of the book, AMD and domestic universities have jointly compiled a wide range of sub-books, heterogeneous application instances, to help developers learn and master opencl, and promote the popularization of Heterogeneous Computing in China.

Chu Hanjin said, "We hope this book will become a textbook for opencl courses in colleges and universities to help cultivate Heterogeneous Computing talents in Chinese universities ." At present, AMD has taught and trained Heterogeneous Computing and opencl at more than 10 universities in China. AMD also cooperates with Tsinghua University, xidian University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and other universities to carry out scientific research projects such as general heterogeneous computing applications, this will help China's professional and technical talent team build and improve its scientific research and innovation capabilities.

This summer, AMD's new heterogeneous Programming Competition will arrive on schedule. Students and Social developers from more than colleges and universities in China will compete on the same stage. The winners will not only have generous prizes, we will also be invited to the 2013 AFDS conference in the United States to communicate with world-class computer systems and software design experts.

At the csdn 2012 software development 2.0 Technical Conference on October 21, amd isomorphic computing expert Phil Rogers will once again come to China to bring new information and progress related to HSA and hold a series of activities, at the same time, they also listened to the voice of domestic developers. (Thanks to AMD for providing technical support)

This article is original to csdnArticleAnd cannot be reproduced without permission. If you need to reprint please contact market@csdn.net.

Http://cloud.csdn.net/a/20120717/2807418-AMD-PhilRogers-preach-HSA.html