A Project for Developing a Linear Algebra Library for High-Performance Computers

ABSTRAC e propose to design and implement a transportable linear algebra library in Fortran 77 for efficient use on t c high-performance computers. The library is intended to provide a uniform set of subroutines to solve the mos ommon linear algebra problems and to run efficiently on a wide range of architectures. This library, which will a be freely accessible via computer network, not only will ease code development, make codes more portable mong machines of different architectures, and increase efficiency, but also will provide tools for evaluating p computer performance. The library will be based on the well-known and widely used LINPACK and EISPACK ackages for linear equation solving, eigenvalue problems, and linear least squares. LINPACK and EISPACK t d have provided an important infrastructure for scientific computing on serial machines, but they were no esigned to exploit the profusion of parallel and vector architectures now becoming available. We propose to s e restructure the algorithms in terms of calls to a small number of extended Basic Linear Algebra Subroutine ach of which implements a basic operation such as matrix multiplication, rank-matrix updates, and the solu-k l a tion of triangular systems. These operations can be optimized for each architecture, but the underlying numerica lgorithms will be the same for all machines.