Enabling GPU software developers to optimize their applications — The LPGPU2 approach

Abstract

Low-power GPUs have become ubiquitous, they can be found in domains ranging from wearable and mobile computing to automotive systems. With this ubiquity has come a wider range of applications exploiting low-power GPUs, placing ever increasing demands on the expected performance and power efficiency of the devices. The LPGPU2 project is an EU-funded, Innovation Action, 30-month-project targeting to develop an analysis and visualization framework that enables GPU application developers to improve the performance and power consumption of their applications. To this end, the project follows a holistic approach. First, several applications (use cases) are being developed for or ported to low-power GPUs. These applications will be optimized using the tooling framework in the last phase of the project. In addition, power measurement devices and power models are devised that are 10× more accurate than the state of the art. The ultimate goal of the project is to promote open vendor-neutral standards via the Khronos group. This paper briefly reports on the achievements made in the first phase of the project (till month 18) and focuses on the progress made in applications; in power measurement, estimation, and modelling; and in the analysis and visualization tool suite.