How to Write Your Own Blazingly Fast Library of Special Functions for Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessors

Statically-linked libraries are used in business and academia for security, encapsulation, and convenience reasons. Static libraries with functions offloadable to Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors must contain executable code for both the host and the coprocessor architecture. Furthermore, for library functions used in data-parallel contexts, vectorized versions of the functions must be produced at the compilation stage.

This white paper shows how to design and build statically-linked libraries with functions offloadable to Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. In addition, it illustrates how special functions with scalar syntax (e.g., y=f(x)) can be implemented in such a way that user applications can use them in thread- and data-parallel contexts. The second part of the paper demonstrates some optimization methods that improve the performance of functions with scalar syntax on the multi-core and the many-core platforms: precision control, strength reduction, and algorithmic optimizations.

Complete paper:

 Colfax_Static_Libraries_Xeon_Phi.pdf (426 KB)