DPF: A Data Parallel Fortran Benchmark Suite

Abstract

The Data Parallel Fortran (DPF) benchmark suite is designed for evaluating data parallel compilers and scalable architectures. Many of the DPF codes are provided in three versions: basic, optimized and with library calls for performance critical operations typically found in software libraries. The functionality of the benchmarks cover collective communication functions, scientific software library functions, and application kernels that reflect the computational structure and communication patterns in fluid dynamic simulations, fundamental physics and molecular studies in chemistry and biology. The intended target language is High Performance Fortran (HPF). However, due to the lack of HPF compilers at the time of this benchmark development, the suite is written in Connection Machine Fortran (CMF). The DPF codes provide performance evaluation metrics in the form of busy and elapsed times (CM-5), FLOP rates and arithmetic efficiency. The codes are characterized in terms of FLOP count, memory usage, communication pattern, local memory accesses, array allocation mechanism, as well as operation and communication counts per iteration.