Abstract
The almost simultaneous emergence of multicore chips and petascale computers presents multidimensional challenges and opportunities for parallel programming. Machines with hundreds of TeraFLOP/S exist now, with at least one having crossed the 1 PetaFLOP/s rubicon. Many machines have over 100,000 processors. The largest planned machine by NSF will be at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by early 2011. At the same time, there are already hundreds of supercomputers with over 1,000 processors each. Adding breadth, multicore processors are starting to get into most desktop computers, and this trend is expected to continue. This era of parallel computing will have a significant impact on the society. Science and engineering will make breakthroughs based on computational modeling, while the broader desktop use has the potential to directly enhance individual productivity and quality of life for everyone. I will review the current state in parallel computing, and then discuss some of the challenges. In particular, I will focus on questions such as: What kind of programming models will prevail? What are some of the required and desired characteristics of such model/s? My answers are based, in part, on my experience with several applications ranging from quantum chemistry, biomolecular simulations, simulation of solid propellant rockets, and computational astronomy.
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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Kale, L. (2008). The Excitement in Parallel Computing. In: Sadayappan, P., Parashar, M., Badrinath, R., Prasanna, V.K. (eds) High Performance Computing - HiPC 2008. HiPC 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5374. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89894-8_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89894-8_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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