The OpenCL Programming Book
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Foreword
“The free lunch is over.”
The history of computing has entered a new era. Until a few years ago, the CPU clock speed
determined how fast a program will run. I vividly recall having a discussion on the topic of
software performance optimization with a System Engineer back in 2000, to which his stance was,
“the passing of time will take care of it all,” due to the improving technology. However, with the
CPU clock speed leveling off at around 2005, it is now solely up to the programmer to make the
software run faster. The free lunch is over. The processor venders have given up on increasing
CPU clock speed, and are now taking the approach of raising the number of cores per processor in
order to gain performance capability.
In recent years, many multi-core processors were born, and many developing methods were
proposed. Programmers were forced to grudgingly learn a new language for every new type of
processor architecture. Naturally, this caused a rise in demand for one language capable of
handling any architecture types, and finally, an open standard was recently established. The
standard is now known as “OpenCL”.
With the khronos group leading the way (known for their management of the OpenGL standard),
numerous vendors are now working together to create a standard framework for the multi-core
era.
Will this new specification become standardized? Will it truly be able to get the most out of
multi-core systems? Will it help take some weight off the programmer’s shoulders? Will it
allow for compatible programs to be written for various architectures? Whether the answers to
these questions become “Yes” or “No” depends on the efforts of everyone involved. The
framework must be designed to support various architectures. Many new tools and libraries
must be developed. It must also be well-received by many programmers. This is no easy task,
as evidenced by the fact that countless programming languages continually appear and disappear.
However, one sure fact is that a new standard developing method is necessary for the new
multi-core era. Another sure fact is that “OpenCL” is currently in the closest position to
becoming that new standard.
The Fixstars Corporation, who authors this book, has been developing softwares for the Cell
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