Optimization of data-parallel field expressions in the POOMA framework

Abstract

The POOMA framework is a C++ class library for the development of large-scale parallel scientific applications. POOMA's Field class implements a templated, multidimensional, data-parallel array that partitions data in a simulation domain into sub-blocks. These subdomain blocks are used on a parallel computer in data-parallel Field expressions. In this paper we describe the design of Fields, their implementation in the POOMA framework, and their performance on a Silicon Graphics Inc. Origin 2000. We focus on the aspects of the Field implementation which relate to efficient memory use and improvement of run-time performance: reducing the number of temporaries through expression templates, reducing the total memory used by compressing constant regions, and performing calculations on sparsely populated Fields by using sparse index lists.