Pragma driven shared memory parallelism in Zig by supporting OpenMP loop directives

David Kacs; Nick Brown; Joseph Lee; Justs Zarins

doi:10.48550/arXiv.2409.20148

Pragma driven shared memory parallelism in Zig by supporting OpenMP loop directives

David Kacs^*, Nick Brown, Joseph Lee, Justs Zarins

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

The Zig programming language, which is designed to provide performance and safety as first class concerns, has become popular in recent years. Given that Zig is built upon LLVM, and-so enjoys many of the benefits provided by the ecosystem, including access to a rich set of backends, Zig has significant potential for high performance workloads. However, it is yet to gain acceptance in HPC and one of the reasons for this is that support for the pragma driven shared memory parallelism is missing.

In this paper we describe enhancing the Zig compiler to add support for OpenMP loop directives. Then exploring performance using NASA’s NAS Parallel Benchmark (NPB) suite. We demonstrate that not only does our integration of OpenMP with Zig scale comparatively to Fortran and C reference implementations of NPB, but furthermore Zig provides up to a 1.25 times performance increase compared to Fortran.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2409.20148
Publication status	Accepted/In press - 1 Oct 2024
Event	The Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC - Atlanta, United States Duration: 18 Nov 2024 → 18 Nov 2024 https://llvm-hpc-2024-workshop.github.io/

Workshop

Workshop	The Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC
Country/Territory	United States
City	Atlanta
Period	18/11/24 → 18/11/24
Internet address	https://llvm-hpc-2024-workshop.github.io/

Access to Document

10.48550/arXiv.2409.20148

Zig_LLVM24_aaAccepted author manuscript, 256 KBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY)

1 Active

Efficient Cross-Domain DSL Development for Exascale
Grosser, T., Brown, N., Krause, A. & Steuwer, M.
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
2/08/21 → 31/03/25
Project: Research

1 Abstract

Implementing OpenMP for Zig to Enable Its Use in HPC Context
Kacs, D., Brown, N. & Lee, J., 12 Aug 2024, p. 116-117.
Research output: Contribution to conference › Abstract › peer-review

Open Access
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Cite this

@inproceedings{f32086f4a5054bffb5277ed297db5026,

title = "Pragma driven shared memory parallelism in Zig by supporting OpenMP loop directives",

abstract = "The Zig programming language, which is designed to provide performance and safety as first class concerns, has become popular in recent years. Given that Zig is built upon LLVM, and-so enjoys many of the benefits provided by the ecosystem, including access to a rich set of backends, Zig has significant potential for high performance workloads. However, it is yet to gain acceptance in HPC and one of the reasons for this is that support for the pragma driven shared memory parallelism is missing.In this paper we describe enhancing the Zig compiler to add support for OpenMP loop directives. Then exploring performance using NASA{\textquoteright}s NAS Parallel Benchmark (NPB) suite. We demonstrate that not only does our integration of OpenMP with Zig scale comparatively to Fortran and C reference implementations of NPB, but furthermore Zig provides up to a 1.25 times performance increase compared to Fortran. ",

author = "David Kacs and Nick Brown and Joseph Lee and Justs Zarins",

year = "2024",

month = oct,

day = "1",

doi = "10.48550/arXiv.2409.20148",

language = "English",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC",

publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers",

address = "United States",

note = "The Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC ; Conference date: 18-11-2024 Through 18-11-2024",

url = "https://llvm-hpc-2024-workshop.github.io/",

}

Kacs, D, Brown, N , Lee, J & Zarins, J 2024, Pragma driven shared memory parallelism in Zig by supporting OpenMP loop directives. in Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, The Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC, Atlanta, Georgia, United States, 18/11/24. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2409.20148

TY - GEN

T1 - Pragma driven shared memory parallelism in Zig by supporting OpenMP loop directives

AU - Kacs, David

AU - Brown, Nick

AU - Lee, Joseph

AU - Zarins, Justs

PY - 2024/10/1

Y1 - 2024/10/1

N2 - The Zig programming language, which is designed to provide performance and safety as first class concerns, has become popular in recent years. Given that Zig is built upon LLVM, and-so enjoys many of the benefits provided by the ecosystem, including access to a rich set of backends, Zig has significant potential for high performance workloads. However, it is yet to gain acceptance in HPC and one of the reasons for this is that support for the pragma driven shared memory parallelism is missing.In this paper we describe enhancing the Zig compiler to add support for OpenMP loop directives. Then exploring performance using NASA’s NAS Parallel Benchmark (NPB) suite. We demonstrate that not only does our integration of OpenMP with Zig scale comparatively to Fortran and C reference implementations of NPB, but furthermore Zig provides up to a 1.25 times performance increase compared to Fortran.

AB - The Zig programming language, which is designed to provide performance and safety as first class concerns, has become popular in recent years. Given that Zig is built upon LLVM, and-so enjoys many of the benefits provided by the ecosystem, including access to a rich set of backends, Zig has significant potential for high performance workloads. However, it is yet to gain acceptance in HPC and one of the reasons for this is that support for the pragma driven shared memory parallelism is missing.In this paper we describe enhancing the Zig compiler to add support for OpenMP loop directives. Then exploring performance using NASA’s NAS Parallel Benchmark (NPB) suite. We demonstrate that not only does our integration of OpenMP with Zig scale comparatively to Fortran and C reference implementations of NPB, but furthermore Zig provides up to a 1.25 times performance increase compared to Fortran.

U2 - 10.48550/arXiv.2409.20148

DO - 10.48550/arXiv.2409.20148

M3 - Conference contribution

BT - Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC

PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

T2 - The Tenth Annual Workshop on the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure in HPC

Y2 - 18 November 2024 through 18 November 2024

ER -

Pragma driven shared memory parallelism in Zig by supporting OpenMP loop directives

Abstract

Workshop

Access to Document

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Projects

Efficient Cross-Domain DSL Development for Exascale

Research output

Implementing OpenMP for Zig to Enable Its Use in HPC Context

Cite this