Parallel Computing: From Multicores and Gpu's to Petascale

Parallel Computing: From Multicores and Gpu's to Petascale
Summary
Parallel computing technologies have brought dramatic changes to mainstream computing; the majority of today's PC's, laptops and even notebooks incorporate multiprocessor chips with up to four processors. Standard components are increasingly combined with GPU's (Graphics Processing Unit), originally designed for high-speed graphics processing, and FPGA's (Free Programmable Gate Array) to build parallel computers with a wide spectrum of high-speed processing functions. The scale of this powerful hardware is limited only by factors such as energy consumption and thermal control However, in add.