Pi: a parallel architecture interface

Abstract

The authors define Pi, a parallel architecture interface that separates model and machine issues, allowing them to be addressed independently. This provides greater flexibility for both the model and machine builder. Pi addresses a set of common parallel model requirements, including low-latency communication, fast task switching, low-cost synchronization, efficient storage management, the ability to exploit locality, and efficiency support for sequential code. Since Pi provides generic parallel operations, it can efficiently support many parallel programming models, including hybrids of existing models. Pi also forms a basis of comparison for architectural components. The authors present an overview of Pi, and a description of several model examples which have been constructed and evaluated on the interface.<>