OpenBLAS is an
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
implementation of the
BLAS Blas is mainly a Spanish given name and surname, related to Blaise. It may refer to
Places
*Piz Blas, mountain in Switzerland
* San Blas (disambiguation)
People
* Ricardo Blas Jr. (born 1986) Judo athlete from Guam
* Blas Antonio Sáenz (fl. 18 ...
(Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) and
LAPACK
LAPACK ("Linear Algebra Package") is a standard software library for numerical linear algebra. It provides routines for solving systems of linear equations and linear least squares, eigenvalue problems, and singular value decomposition. It als ...
API
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...
s with many hand-crafted optimizations for specific
processor types. It is developed at the Lab of Parallel Software and Computational Science,
ISCAS.
OpenBLAS adds optimized implementations of linear algebra kernels for several processor architectures, including Intel
Sandy Bridge
Sandy Bridge is the List of Intel codenames, codename for Intel's 32 nm process, 32 nm microarchitecture used in the second generation of the Intel Core, Intel Core processors (Intel Core i7, Core i7, Intel Core i5, i5, Intel Core i3, i3). The Sa ...
and
Loongson
Loongson () is the name of a family of general-purpose, MIPS architecture-compatible, later in-house LoongArch architecture central processing unit, microprocessors, as well as the name of the Chinese Fabless manufacturing, fabless company (Loo ...
. It claims to achieve performance comparable to the
Intel MKL. On machines that support the AVX2 instruction set, OpenBLAS can achieve similar performance to MKL, but there are currently almost no open source libraries comparable to MKL on CPUs with the AVX512 instruction set.
OpenBLAS is a fork of
GotoBLAS
In Computational science, scientific computing, GotoBLAS and GotoBLAS2 are Open source software, open source implementations of the BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) Application programming interface, API with many hand-crafted optimization ...
2, which was created by
Kazushige Goto at the
Texas Advanced Computing Center.
History and present
OpenBLAS was developed by the parallel software group led by Professor Yunquan Zhang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
OpenBLAS was initially only for the Loongson CPU platform. Dr. Xianyi Zhang contributed a lot of work. Since GotoBLAS was abandoned, the successor OpenBLAS is now developed as an open source BLAS library for multiple platforms, including
x86
x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...
, ARMv8,
MIPS, and
RISC-V
RISC-V (pronounced "risk-five") is an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established reduced instruction set computer (RISC) principles. The project commenced in 2010 at the University of California, Berkeley. It transfer ...
platforms, and is respected for its excellent portability.
The parallel software group is modernizing OpenBLAS to meet current computing needs. For example, OpenBLAS's level-3 computations were primarily optimized for large and square matrices (often considered as regular-shaped matrices). And now irregular-shaped matrix multiplication are also supported, such as tall and skinny matrix multiplication (TSMM),
which supports faster deep learning calculations on the CPU. TSMM is one of the core calculations in deep learning operations. Besides this, the compact function and small GEMM will also be supported by OpenBLAS.
See also
*
Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software
Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software (ATLAS) is a software library for linear algebra. It provides a mature open source implementation of BLAS APIs for C and FORTRAN 77.
ATLAS is often recommended as a way to automatically generate an ...
(ATLAS)
*
BLIS (BLAS-like Library Instantiation Software)
*
Intel Math Kernel Library
Intel oneAPI Math Kernel Library (Intel oneMKL), formerly known as Intel Math Kernel Library, is a library of optimized math routines for science, engineering, and financial applications. Core math functions include BLAS, LAPACK, ScaLAPACK, spar ...
(MKL)
References
External links
*
{{Numerical linear algebra
Numerical linear algebra
Numerical software
Software using the BSD license