Monday, November 17,2008 @ 4:45pm
PGI 8.0 compiler brings OpenMP 3.0 support
The Portland Group has released PGI 8.0, the latest version of its compiling and development suite for Mac, Linux and Windows software. The v8.0 edition introduces support for the OpenMP 3.0 multi-core programming standard, which lets coders exploit multiple cores in C or Fortran. Concurrent with this is the ability to create and debug OpenMPI apps in Linux and the Mac OS, and build and deploy multi-core apps to any "major" desktop or cluster OS.
Portland notes that it is also offering provisional support for offloading of parallel processing to NVIDIA GPUs, via the latter's CUDA programming scheme. Outside of games, HD video and 3D rendering, many high-end video cards waste their extra processing power. PGI 8.0 additionally includes automatic analysis of source code, database generation for blocked or possible optimizations in an app, and further standardization through use of the Common Compiler Feedback Format. CCFF is a creation of Portland.
Pricing for the PGI software depends on academic or commercial use, and the choice of a license or a subscription.