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SUMMARY:Making OpenCL simple with Haskell - Ben Gaster\, AMD
DTSTART:20110125T130000Z
DTEND:20110125T140000Z
UID:TALK28783@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Microsoft Research Cambridge Talks Admins
DESCRIPTION:Modern processors are evolving into hybrid\, heterogeneous pro
 cessors with both CPU and GPU cores used for general purpose computation. 
 The data-parallel languages OpenCL/Cuda have been proposed as low-level pr
 ogramming models for these devices. Both are seen as a good fit to the phy
 sical hardware model and can provide access to unparalleled performance\, 
 but this comes at a price\, and in particular can impact programmers produ
 ctivity. To address these issues language designers have developed high-le
 vel abstractions\, e.g. opaque arrays with extent and shape operations\, t
 hat are compiled\, statically and dynamically\, to OpenCL or Cuda\, but th
 is can come at a price too. Often these programming abstraction limit the 
 algorithms that can be expressed\, e.g. regular array algorithms\, while t
 he underlying language itself allows for a more. \n\nIn this talk we prese
 nt an embedding of OpenCL into the functional programming language Haskell
 \, with the intention of allow programmers to increase productivity while 
 also allowing them to write any OpenCL program. We qualitatively demonstra
 te that using Haskell as a host language improves programming productivity
 \, while allowing Haskell programmers access to some of the performance be
 nefits of modern CPUs and GPUs.\n
LOCATION:Small lecture theatre\, Microsoft Research Ltd\, 7 J J Thomson Av
 enue (Off Madingley Road)\, Cambridge
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