About the Performance of HPF: Improving Runtime on the
Cray T3E with Hardware Specific Properties

muellerm@ipd.uka.de
http://www.ipd.uka.de/~muellerm

ABSTRACT:

High Performance Fortran permits to write parallel programs with much less programming effort than by using standard communication libraries such as MPI or PVM. The performance of compiled HPF programs is considered low, though. We show that a compiled HPF application will gain a substantial runtime improvement if compilation incorporates properties of the hardware architecture into the final program.

Our prototype HPF compiler ``KarHPFn'' inserts communication primitives of the Cray T3E into the target programs. Programs compiled with KarHPFn run up to 30 times faster than their counterparts compiled with Portland Group HPF.

KEYWORDS:

Cray T3E, HPF, runtime, comparison

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