The modern graphics processor (GPU) is a high performance parallel architecture, with multiple cores and high memory bandwidth and is capable of sustaining computation rates an order of magnitude higher than that of a CPU. In addition, the performance and functionality of GPUs has been increasing at a faster pace than Moore's Law. Although the primary application of GPUs has been fast rendering of geometric primitives (e.g. polygons), the performance and functionality of today's GPUs make them attractive as co-processors for general-purpose computations. Over the last few years, many new algorithms and applications that exploit the inherent parallelism and vector processing capabilities of GPUs have been proposed. GPUs have been widely used for many non-graphics applications. These algorithms exploit the high memory bandwidth and multiple fragment processors for fast computation. See www.gpgpu.org and www.cs.unc.edu/Events/Conferences/GP2/ for more detailed examples and recent work in these areas.
This seminar course will cover algorithmic and system issues for General Purpose Computation using GPUs and use them for a number of applications. We will review the current state of the art and investigate many open issues. Topics include:
Here is a list of lecture topics (subject to changes). Schedule and information on each topic (e.g. readings, web pointers) will be added during the semester before each class.
The class grade of each student is determined by
The assignments will be designed to familiarize the students with basics and develop program for general purpose computation on the GPU. The student should gain useful insights into the features and limitations of GPU programming by hands on experience. The CUDA-based assignments will cover topics such as:
The class projects shall explore more open ended problems in GPGPU and challenge the students to design innovative solutions. Class projects may be done in groups.
Here are just some possible locations to find GPGPU software/libraries and algorithmic toolkits you may need:
High-Level Shading Languages
GPGP Languages
Shader Conversion
Debugging Tools
Utility Code
Benchmarking Tools
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