From itumeztr@sariyer.cc.itu.edu.tr Tue Mar  4 11:34:58 1997
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 17:24:56 +0200 (EET)
From: ITU Mezunlari Dernegi Haber Dagitim Merkezi
     <itumeztr@sariyer.cc.itu.edu.tr>
To: ** ITUMD ** ISTANBUL TEKNIK UNIVERSITESI MEZUNLARI DERNEGI ULUSLARARASI
     KURULUSU <itumeztr@sariyer.cc.itu.edu.tr>
Subject: "Technology Update: High Performance Fortran," a bulletin by Chris (fwd)

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/            To: ITU Alumni Scattered All Around The World           _/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/


  "Technology Update: High Performance Fortran," a bulletin by Chris
Willard of International Data Corp. (IDC), provides an in-depth look
at the state of the HPF language and its impact on the evolving HPC
market.  Reserve your free copy of this report to learn more about
HPF and what it means to your organization.


What Is HPF?

High Performance Fortran (HPF), a parallel variant of Fortran,
is emerging as a common high-level parallel programming model across
all types of technical computing systems.  HPF encompasses all of
Fortran 90, the parallel processing features from Fortran 95, and
a simple means to express data distribution among processors in
a parallel system.  Unlike MPI or threads-based programming, HPF
allows the user to write parallel applications at a high level and
eliminates the need to directly manage the interaction of the
processors in a parallel system.

NAS Benchmarks with HPF

At Supercomputing '96, NASA Ames released the first official HPF
results on several of the NAS Parallel benchmarks.  On some of these
key benchmarks, the HPF timing results are within 30% of the speed
of the MPI implementations.  These results provide clear evidence
of the continued rapid advancement of HPF technology.  With the
advent of high-speed globally addressable systems such as the
CRAY T3E (tm), SGI Origin (tm), and Hewlett-Packard Exemplar (tm),
the need for a standard, efficient, scalable shared-memory
programming model such as that provided by HPF has become even
more acute.

IDC Bulletin

Authored by High Performance Computing analyst Christopher Willard,
"Technology Update: High Performance Fortran" outlines some of the
key features of HPF, its strengths and weaknesses, and experiences
related by early adopters of the language.  Dr. Willard concludes
in part that "The availability of effective compiler tools such as
HPF can reduce the need for special staff to program parallel
computers and reduce the time scientists and engineers must spend
away from their primary responsibilities in order to get programs
running."

To receive a free copy of this IDC bulletin, please send the following
information to Denney Cole (dcole@pgroup.com):

Name:
Organization:
Position:
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:

A hard copy of the bulletin will be sent to your paper mail address.

********************************************************************************