The Payoff For Applications
Users with extreme performance requirements on dedicated applications can go further: investigating the possibilities for extending the standard SiCortex MPI library to provide more targeted support. For example, the ability of each DMA Engine to inject commands for execution by other DMA Engines is a natural fit for functions that many applications now carry out laboriously in user software.
Collective Wisdom
This newsletter has focused on the DMA Engine's role in node-to-node data transfers. As you might expect, it also has extensive facilities for accelerating so-called "collective" operations that involve large numbers of processors. Fast collectives are essential for high processor count computing. A future edition of the newsletter will discuss collectives in detail.
