Toward parallel mathematical software for elliptic partial differential equations

  • Authors:

  • Calvin J. Ribbens;Layne T. Watson;Colin Desa

  • Affiliations:

  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg, VA;Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg, VA;Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg, VA

  • Venue:
  • ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS)
  • Year:
  • 1993

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Abstract

Three approaches to parallelizing important components of the mathematical software package ELLPACK are considered: an explicit approach using compiler directives available only on the target machine, an automatic approach using an optimizing and parallelizing precompiler, and a two-level approach based on extensive use of a set of low level computational kernels. The focus is on shared memory architectures. Each approach to parallelization is described in detail, along with a discussion of the effort involved. Performance on a test problem, using up to sixteen processors of a Sequent Symmetry S81, is reported and discussed. Implications for the parallelization of a broad class of mathematical software are drawn.