Parallel Programming and Optimization With Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessors

This book will guide you to the mastery of parallel programming with Intel® Xeon® family products: Intel® Xeon® processors and Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessors. It includes a detailed presentation of the programming paradigm for Intel® Xeon® product family, optimization guidelines, and hands-on exercises on systems equipped with the Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessors, as well as instructions on using Intel software development tools and libraries included in Intel Parallel Studio XE.

This book is targeted toward developers familiar with C/C++ programming in Linux. Developers with little parallel programming experience will be able to grasp the core concepts of these subjects from the detailed commentary in Chapter 3. For advanced developers familiar with multi-core and/or GPU programming, the ebook offers materials specific to Intel compilers and Intel® Xeon® family products, as well as optimization advice pertinent to Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture.

We have written these materials relying on key elements for efficient learning: practice and repetition. As a consequence, the reader will find a great number of code listings in the main section of these materials. In the extended appendix, we provided numerous hands-on exercises that one can complete either under an instructor's supervision, or autonomously in a self-paced training environment.

This document is different from a typical book on computer science, because we intended it to be used as a lecture plan in an intensive learning course. Speaking in programming terms, a typical book traverses material with a "depth-first algorithm", describing every detail of each method or concept before moving on to the next method. In contrast, this document traverses the scope of materials with a "breadth-first" algorithm. First, we give an overview of multiple methods to address a certain issue. In the subsequent chapter, we re-visit these methods, this time in greater detail. We may go into even more depth down the line. In this way, we expect that developers will have enough time to absorb and comprehend the variety of programming and optimization methods presented here.