Introduction to Parallel Computing Concepts

Parallel Computing

Simultaneous processing using multiple processors.

Single-Core Systems

Computing systems with one processing unit.

Multi-Core Systems

Computing systems with multiple processing units.

Performance Slowdown

Decrease in single-processor performance improvements.

Microprocessor Performance (1986-2002)

Increased by 50% during this period.

Microprocessor Performance (2002-Present)

Slowed down to 20% annual improvement.

Parallelism

Using multiple processors for higher performance.

Integrated Circuit

A chip containing multiple processors.

Core

A central processing unit within a multicore processor.

Climate Modeling

Simulations analyzing global climate interactions.

Protein Folding

Study of protein structures affecting diseases.

Drug Discovery

Using computing power for novel medical therapies.

Energy Research

Simulations for improving clean energy technologies.

Data Analysis

Examining large data volumes for insights.

Transistor Speed

Increases as transistor size decreases.

Power Consumption

Energy used by processors during operation.

Heat Loss

Power lost as heat in integrated circuits.

Serial Code

Single-threaded code executed sequentially.

Partial Sum

Sum calculated by individual cores.

Global Sum

Total sum from all cores' results.

Task-Parallelism

Partitioning tasks among multiple cores.

Data-Parallelism

Partitioning data for similar operations across cores.

Shared-Memory Systems

Cores share access to a common memory.

Distributed-Memory Systems

Each core has private memory, communicates via messages.

Concurrent Computing

Multiple tasks in progress simultaneously.

Distributed Computing

Cooperation among programs to solve problems.