OpenCL and Heterogenous Computing advances

• OpenCL and Heterogenous Computing advances

This article concerns AMD OpenCL and Heterogenous Computing, which have reached a new level. Here, Benedict R. Gaster talks about some books that deal with OpenCL and Heterogenous Computing and how that have advanced. This article was originally written at the AMD blog by Benedict R. Gaster.

The Open Computing Language (OpenCLTM) is already in its second revision, OpenCL 1.1, but until last week where could you turn to get a book covering the specifications? The answer to this was none, but all this has changed with the introduction of Addison-Wesley’s “OpenCL Programming Guide”, which is a book covering the whole of OpenCL 1.1, written by the people who developed the specification, including Aaftab Munshi, the specification editor and its original designer. This is all very exciting, as it not only comes at a time when OpenCL applications are appearing in earnest, but also when with the release of Apple’s latest OS X, named Lion, comes with support for OpenCL 1.1. This means that OpenCL 1.1 is supported on all major platforms, including Linux®, Windows®, and OS X. The new book covers the OpenCL specification in detail, including a wide selection of detailed examples, and it seems perfectly placed to be used as a companion with any combination of OpenCL 1.1 implementations.

The book itself is divided into two parts; the first covers the specification in detail, with the second presenting an extensive set of case studies, that highlight many important programming idioms and techniques useful for the professional and academic alike. With the growing popularity of the OpenCL C++ Wrapper API it is great to see its inclusion, having its own chapter and a selection of cases studies addressing its use, including the application “ AMD’s Ocean Demonstration”, used to generate the image for the book’s front cover.

For more information on the book and how to order it check out the book’s website: http://www.openclprogrammingguide.com/.

As news of The OpenCL Programming Guide book spreads maybe the real punch line is not that of a single book, but combined with Apple’s OpenCL 1.1 support for OS X Lion rounding out implementations across all major platforms it is a statement that OpenCL has reached a new level. The time for GPU computing and more generally heterogeneous computing is now!

Of course, this is not the only great news that is happening in the world of OpenCL, for example, two more things I’m looking forward to are:

• Another book: Heterogeneous Computing with OpenCL, to be published by Morgan Kaufmann.
• SC’11 Tutorial: OpenCL: A Hands-on introduction

Find out about these and lots more at http://www.heterogeneouscompute.org/.

Benedict R. Gaster is a Software Architect at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Share this post on OpenCL and Heterogenous Computing advances