LPGPU2 tool-suite helps to extend mobile battery life without sacrificing performance or quality

• The LPGPU2 tool-suite helps programmers develop power-efficient code for GPUs by identifying bottlenecks relating to performance (for example in terms of frames-per-second) and power (for example in terms of energy per instruction). 
  
• The toolset allows developers to strike a balance between ultra-low-power requirements and high-performance graphics display/image processing. 
  
• Breakthrough techniques mean that battery life can be extended even when running graphics software, enabling innovative applications in domains from fitness to infotainment, and from security to autonomous vehicles
  

“The LPGPU2 tool will have a major impact on applications where ultra-low power or high performance graphics are priorities,” explains LPGPU2 Coordinator Ben Juurlink, professor of embedded systems architectures at TU Berlin. “Thanks to the breakthrough techniques developed by LPGPU2’s academic and industry experts, innovative applications in a wide range of domains, including healthcare, fitness, security, infotainment and autonomous vehicles, are now possible.”

By providing an end-to-end solution that starts at the application and reaches all the way to the hardware, the tool-suite provides insights and visibility not possible in other tools. This coupled with the Feedback Engine – a unique part of the tool suite that makes optimization simple by providing insightful guidance on how to improve performance and power consumption – provides an unbeatable combination.

The LPGPU2 tool suite has benefited from the expertise of a range of academic and industrial partners. TU Berlin developed the power measurement tool, while Samsung designed and implemented the data collection frameworks, the feedback engine (that functions as a virtual optimization expert) and also tested the tool suite on real mobile devices. Greek company Think Silicon validated it on their four-core NEMA GPU system. Meanwhile, Scottish software specialists Codeplay extended AMD’s CodeXL tool, allowing programmers to profile their SYCL applications, and Berlin-based video experts Spin Digital produced a high-performance, multi-API video player, which delivers performance gains of up to 25% as well as energy usage reduction of up to 25%.

Download the tool suite now from the GitHub repository: https://github.com/codeplaysoftware/LPGPU2-CodeXL

About LPGPU2

LPGPU2 helps developers create software for low-power GPUs by providing a complete performance and power analysis process for the programmer. Building on LPGPU1, the project addresses all aspects of performance analysis, from hardware power and performance counters, to a framework that processes and visualizes information from these counters, to use-case applications driving the entire design. Led by TU Berlin, LPGPU2’s unique consortium brings together world-class academic researchers with leading European technology companies. The team combines academic experience in research, theory, and analysis with industry expertise in terms of applications in practice, reaching production maturity and commercialization of the technology.

LPGPU2 has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 688759.

Further information:

Professor Ben Juurlink, TU Berlin

Email: coordinatorlpgpu.org

Web: www.lpgpu.org

Tel: +49.30.314-73130

TU Berlin looks back at a long and distinguished tradition of teaching and research. In 1799 its most important predecessor, the Building Academy, was founded. In 1946 the university was re-established under the name of Technische Universität Berlin. The seven Faculties of the university offer 100 courses of study from the fields of engineering and natural sciences, economics and business, planning sciences, humanities and the social sciences. Enrolment at TU Berlin is about 32,000 and about 315 professors and an academic staff of 2,600 instruct the students, making it one of the largest technical universities in Germany. TU Berlin participates in the project through the Embedded Systems Architectures (Architektur eingebetteter Systeme, AES) laboratory of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The AES laboratory investigates and teaches the field of computer architecture, ranging from low-power embedded systems to massively parallel high-performance systems. Its current research focuses include multi-/many-core architectures and GPUs, development and optimization of highly scalable parallel applications, and (architecture support for) parallel programming models. More information on the AES laboratory is available at http://www.aes.tu-berlin.de/en.

About Codeplay – http://www.codeplay.com

Codeplay is internationally recognized for expertise in Heterogeneous Systems, and has many years of experience in the development of Compilers, Runtimes, Debuggers, Test Systems, and other specialized tools. Codeplay has delivered standards-compliant systems for some of the largest semiconductor companies in the world, focusing specifically on high-performance heterogeneous processor solutions for CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, FPGAs and other specialized imaging and vision processors. Working within The Khronos™ Group to define new open standards such as OpenCL™, SPIR™, SYCL™, and Vulkan™, and leading the creation of new System Runtime and Tools standards through the HSA Foundation, Codeplay has earned a reputation as one of the leaders in compute systems. The vast expertise gained in building optimized close-to-the-metal technology for customers has been utilized in developing Codeplay’s ComputeSuite™ product. It combines the high-level ComputeCpp™ easy-to-use C++ standard development tools, with the low-level ComputeAorta™ heterogeneous runtime technology to ensure that open standards-based parallel software can run on the widest possible range of platforms and devices. By being modular and standards-based, software developers can mix and match components to ensure that their software runs anywhere and exploits the full power of the underlying system. Throughout its history, Codeplay has also participated in international research projects, with partners from the largest hardware vendors to the most cutting-edge startups, and the expert academics in our field. The focus of these projects has covered optimizing high-performance graphics techniques at low power for mobile and embedded devices, ensuring that performance is portable and investigating its impact across a variety of different heterogeneous systems, and analyzing whether new compilation techniques can assist in making software faster and more power-efficient. The results of this research provide the drive for products that are made available to customers and associated developers.

About ThinkSilicon – http://www.think-silicon.com

Think Silicon develops Graphics Processors (GPUs) and Display Processors/Controllers for the IoT, Wearable and broader display devices markets, and its growing demand for ultra-low power, area and memory constrained SoCs. A cost efficient but still vibrant 3D/2D graphics experience is a key element to succeed but without sacrificing visual performance and dispense the ability of ultra-low power consumption. Think Silicon’s configurable GPUs have a wide range of operation areas and applications such as fitness, lifestyle, healthcare, infotainment, automotive, security etc. and can drive displays from 1.32” up to 6.0” and resolutions from 320×320 up to full HD. The Display Controller IP is a powerful “Swiss Army Knife” which contains multiple smart tools and functionalities to compose graphics and process video signals up to 8K resolutions on multiple layers. Think Silicon’s IP has been licensed to leading semiconductor companies for display, multimedia, VoiP, Wearables applications and microcontroller and IoT platforms. Think Silicon S.A. was founded in 2007, has locations in Patras, Greece (DC + HQ), Toronto, Canada (HQ North America) and San Jose, CA,USA (Sales office).

About Samsung Electronics UK Ltd. – http://www.samsung.com

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies that redefine the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, cameras, digital appliances, printers, medical equipment, network systems, and semiconductor and LED solutions.

We are also leading in the Internet of Things space with the open platform SmartThings, our broad range of smart devices, and through proactive cross-industry collaboration. We employ 319,000 people across 84 countries with annual sales of US $196 billion. To discover more, and for the latest news, feature articles and press material, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at news.samsung.com.

Samsung R&D Institute UK based in Staines-upon-Thames near South West London is a division of Samsung Electronics (UK) Ltd. Samsung R&D Institute UK is responsible for driving the company’s involvement within the Khronos Group. Samsung sits on Khronos’ board as a Promoter member, and our engineers actively participate in multiple working groups, particularly focussed on standardisation in the graphic-OS integration domain and shaping future graphics APIs. Since January 2014, we have taken on the role of chairing the EGL working group, and subsequently also chairing Khronos’ Technical Advisory Panel, which discusses new standardisation ideas and cross working group topics. Samsung was also instrumental in forming the Window System Integration sub-group for the Vulkan API, which we now chair.

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Codeplay is a registered trademark of Codeplay Software Ltd. in the UK and/or other countries.

All rights reserved. ComputeSuite is a trademark of Codeplay Software Ltd. ComputeCpp is a trademark of Codeplay Software Ltd. ComputeAorta is a trademark of CodeplaySoftware Ltd.