Treffer: A Unifying Approach of Data and Task Parallelism Based on Structural Clock Communication Paradigm

Among parallel programming tools, task parallelism and data parallelism are the most common programming models. Task parallelism enables to reach high performances but requires an important programming effort. In opposite, data parallelism provides programming facilities close to the sequential model at the expense of performances. In this paper, we show that it is possible to propose a language that integrates a task parallel execution model and a data parallel programming model in a unique and unifying framework. This ability depends on a specific synchronization/communication model relying on structural clock mechanism. We describe an implementation of our model on Cray T3D. It highlights experimental performances that outperform classical MPI programming.