Parallelizing C, Fortran and HPF Compilers Targeted Toward the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) Environment

Parallel computers have been widely available for several years but have yet to fulfill their promise despite the potential for greater scalability and lower cost/performance. While interest in parallel computing systems remain high, widespread proliferation and acceptance of these systems has not occurred. The basic problem facing parallel computer users is a lack of a common, portable parallel programming system that spans the diverse MP systems now available. Recently, the Java language and the JVM system have combined with the new web technology to create a widespread software development and execution infrastructure in support of Java and JVM. The Portland Group, Inc. (PGI) has developed commercially accepted optimizing, vectorizing, parallelizing Fortran, C and HPF compilers for many HPC parallel systems. This proposal will research and investigate the issues regarding a retargeting of these PGI compilers for the JVM environment. The result of this could lead to a successful product offer of multi-language parallelizing compilers that span virtually all the HPC MP systems. Discovery as to any performance trade-offs will be the most critical factor in the analysis.