Returning control to the programmer: SIMD intrinsics for virtual machines
University of Ottawa
Communications of the ACM, Volume 54 Issue 4, April 2011
@article{parri2011returning,
title={Returning control to the programmer: SIMD intrinsics for virtual machines},
author={Parri, J. and Shapiro, D. and Bolic, M. and Groza, V.},
journal={Queue},
volume={9},
number={2},
pages={30},
year={2011},
publisher={ACM}
}
Exposing SIMD units within interpreted languages could simplify programs and unleash floods of untapped processor power. Server and workstation hardware architecture is continually improving, yet interpreted languages-most importantly, Java-have failed to keep pace with the proper utilization of modern processors. SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) units are available in nearly every current desktop and server processor and are greatly underutilized, especially with interpreted languages. If multicore processors continue their current growth pattern, interpreted-language performance will begin to fall behind, since current native compilers and languages offer better automated SIMD optimization and direct SIMD mapping support. As each core in commercial x86 multicore processors includes a dedicated SIMD unit, the performance disparity will grow exponentially as long as the available SIMD units remain underutilized in interpreted-language environments.
September 16, 2011 by hgpu
