Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Bucket Sort Algorithm for the Particle-In-Cell Method on Manycore Architectures

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Book cover Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics (PPAM 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9573))

Abstract

The Particle-In-Cell (PIC) method is effectively used in many scientific simulation codes. In order to optimize the performance of the PIC approach, data locality is required. This relies on efficient sorting algorithms. We present a bucket sort algorithm with small memory footprint for the PIC method targeting Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Our sorting algorithm shows an increased performance with the amount of storage provided and with the orderliness of the particles. For our application where particles are presorted it performs better and requires less memory than other sorting algorithms in the literature. The overall PIC algorithm performs at its best if the sorting is applied.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. http://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/gpu-pro-tip-fast-histograms-using- shared-atomics-maxwell/

  2. Burnetas, A., Solow, D., Agarwal, R.: An analysis and implementation of an efficient in-place bucket sort. Acta Informatica 34, 687–700 (1997)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. Chen, G., Chaćon, L., Barnes, D.C.: An efficient mixed-precision, hybrid CPU-GPU implementation of a nonlinearly implicit one-dimensional particle-in-cell algorithm. J. Comput. Phys. 231, 5374–5388 (2012)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  4. Decyk, V.K., Singh, T.V.: Particle-in-cell algorithms for emerging computer architectures. Comput. Phys. Commun. 185(3), 708–719 (2014)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Hockney, R.W., Eastwood, J.W.: Computer Simulation Using Particles. Hilger, Bristol (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Jolliet, S., Bottino, A., Angelino, P., Hatzky, R., Tran, T.M., Mcmillan, B.F., Sauter, O., Appert, K., Idomura, Y., Villard, L.: A global collisionless PIC code in magnetic coordinates. Comput. Phys. Commun. 177, 409–425 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Joseph, R.G., Ravunnitkutty, G., Ranka, S., D’Azevedo, E., Klasky, S.: Efficient GPU implementation for particle in cell algorithm. In: 25th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), Anchorage (Alaska), May 2011

    Google Scholar 

  8. Merrill, D., Grimshaw, A.: High performance and scalable radix sorting: a case study of implementing dynamic parallelism for GPU computing. Parallel Process. Lett. 21(2), 245–272 (2011)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  9. Mertmann, P., Eremin, D., Mussenbrock, T., Brinkmann, R.P., Awakowicz, P.: Fine-sorting one-dimensional particle-in-cell algorithm with Monte-Carlo collisions on a graphics processing unit. Comput. Phys. Commun. 182, 2161–2167 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Rozen, T., Boryczko, K., Alda, W.: GPU bucket sort algorithm with applications to nearest-neighbour search. J. WSCG 16, 161–167 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Satish, N., Kim, C., Chhugani, J., Nguyen, A.D., Lee, V.W., Kim, D., Dubey, P.: Fast sort on CPUs and GPUs: a case for bandwidth oblivious SIMD sort. In: SIGMOD 2010, Indinapolis (Indiana), June 2010

    Google Scholar 

  12. Sintorn, E., Assarsson, U.: Fast parallel GPU-sorting using a hybrid algorithm. J. Parallel Distrib. Comput. 68, 1381–1388 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Stantchev, G., Dorland, W., Gumerov, N.: Fast parallel particle-to-grid interpolation for plasma PIC simulations on the GPU. J. Parallel Distrib. Comput. 68, 1339–1349 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Peter Messmer and Jakob Progsch from NVIDIA for helpful discussions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSCS, Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, Via Trevano 131, 6900, Lugano, Switzerland

    Andreas Jocksch & Claudio Gheller

  2. Swiss Plasma Center, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Farah Hariri, Trach-Minh Tran, Stephan Brunner & Laurent Villard

Authors
  1. Andreas Jocksch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Farah Hariri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Trach-Minh Tran
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Stephan Brunner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Claudio Gheller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Laurent Villard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andreas Jocksch .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Czestochowa University of Technolog, Czestochowa, Poland

    Roman Wyrzykowski

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California, Marina Del Rey, California, USA

    Ewa Deelman

  3. Electrical Engineering & Comput. Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

    Jack Dongarra

  4. Czestochowa University of Technology, Institute of Computer & Information Sci., Czestochowa, Poland

    Konrad Karczewski

  5. Department of Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland

    Jacek Kitowski

  6. Systèmes d’informations, Big Data et Rec, AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland

    Kazimierz Wiatr

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Jocksch, A., Hariri, F., Tran, TM., Brunner, S., Gheller, C., Villard, L. (2016). A Bucket Sort Algorithm for the Particle-In-Cell Method on Manycore Architectures. In: Wyrzykowski, R., Deelman, E., Dongarra, J., Karczewski, K., Kitowski, J., Wiatr, K. (eds) Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics. PPAM 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9573. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32149-3_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32149-3_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32148-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32149-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation