DIF - A Language for Dataflow Graph Specification and Exchange

The DIF project addresses a significant impediment to broad industry acceptance of dataflow technology in high performance computing, namely the lack of a standard language for dataflow application programs. Despite the rich body of Academic and Defense Department sponsored R&D in dataflow programming and computing technology, data flow programming has not been widely adopted by the parallel computing industry sector. Existing vendor proprietary and unsupported academic tools and environments are perceived as posing unacceptable technical and business risks. The establishment of a vendor independent language for exchange and reuse of legacy data flow graphs will reduce this risk, making it possible to preserve of high value data flow specifications independent of any particular vendor''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''s tools. Further, the use of tools from multiple vendors will be enabled through sharing data flow graph application programs. In phase I, the MCCI/UMD team demonstrated a Turing complete preliminary version of DIF that supported exchange of data flow graphs between the University of California Berkeley''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''s Ptolemy data flow simulation environment and MCCI''''''''''''''''s Autocoding Toolset®. This established the feasibility of a common dataflow language for all tools and environments supporting the mathematical model of data flow behavior. In phase I, requirements for a full performance version of DIF were established. Additionally the need for a common Domain Actor library, a library for functions underlying dataflow graph nodes was recognized. Our phase II effort will develop the full performance version of DIF. A primitive library supporting the VSIPL standard will implemented as the DIF Domain Actor library. The full performance version of DIF will be evaluated by Lockheed Martin, MS2 for suitability as a standard for high performance application specification. The Xilinx corporation will review DIF for potential inclusion in dataflow design tools for hardware design.