Facing the Multicore-Challenge

Book excerpt: This state-of-the-art survey features topics related to the impact of multicore and coprocessor technologies in science and for large-scale applications in an interdisciplinary environment. The papers cover all issues of current research in mathematical modeling, design of parallel algorithms, aspects of microprocessor architecture, parallel programming languages, compilers, hardware-aware computing, heterogeneous platforms, emerging architectures, tools, performance tuning, and requirements for large-scale applications. The contributions presented in this volume offer a survey on the state of the art, the concepts and perspectives for future developments. They are an outcome of an inspiring conference conceived and organized by the editors within the junior scientist program of Heidelberg Academy for Sciences and Humanities titled "Facing the Multicore-Challenge", held at Heidelberg, Germany, in March 2010. The 12 revised full papers presented together with the extended abstracts of 3 invited lectures focus on combination of new aspects of multicore microprocessor technologies, parallel applications, numerical simulation, software development, and tools; thus they clearly show the potential of emerging technologies in the area of multicore and manycore processors that are paving the way towards personal supercomputing.