HiPEAC '11: Keynote II - PetaBricks: A Language and Compiler based on Autotuning

Saman Amarasinghe

Professor of EECS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Leader of the Commit Compiler Group, CS and AI Laboratory (CSAIL)

Abstract.

We have always known that a given problem can be solved using multiple algorithms; and the best solution for each input or architecture may require a different algorithm. However, currently there is no simple way for the programmer to express or the compiler to take advantage of all the available algorithmic choices for a problem. In this talk I will present PetaBricks, a new implicitly parallel language and compiler where having multiple implementations of multiple algorithms to solve a problem is the natural way of programming.  The PetaBricks compiler autotunes programs by making the best fine-grained algorithmic choices. Choices also include different automatic parallelization techniques, data distributions, algorithmic parameters, transformations, and blocking. I will also introduce an online autotuner for PetaBricks that can speedup programs even when half the processing resources are used for autotuning.

Biography of Saman Amarasinghe

Saman P. Amarasinghe is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) where he leads the Commit compiler group. His research interests are in discovering novel approaches to improve the performance of modern computer systems and make them more secure without unduly increasing the complexity faced by the end users, application developers, compiler writers, or computer architects. Saman received his BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Cornell University in 1988, and his MSEE and Ph.D from Stanford University in 1990 and 1997, respectively.