PLASMA - Parallel Linear Algebra Software for Multicore Architectures ===================================================================== Introduction ------------- The main purpose of PLASMA is to address the performance shortcomings of the http://www.netlib.org/lapack/[LAPACK] and http://www.netlib.org/scalapack/[ScaLAPACK] libraries on multicore processors and multi-socket systems of multicore processors. PLASMA provides routines to solve dense general systems of linear equations, symmetric positive definite systems of linear equations and linear least squares problems, using LU, Cholesky, QR and LQ factorizations. Real arithmetic and complex arithmetic are supported in both single precision and double precision. PLASMA has been designed to supercede LAPACK and ScaLAPACK, principally by restructuring the software to achieve much greater efficiency, where possible, on modern computers based on multicore processors. PLASMA also relies on new or improved algorithms. Currently, however, PLASMA does not serve as a complete replacement of LAPACK due to limited functionality. Specifically, PLASMA does not support band matrices and does not solve eigenvalue and singular value problems. Also, PLASMA does not replace ScaLAPACK as software for distributed memory computers, since it only supports shared-memory machines. PLASMA Website and Download --------------------------- *Current Version is 2.0.0* (4-July-2009) + http://icl.cs.utk.edu/projectsfiles/plasma/html/README.html[README] + Download http://icl.cs.utk.edu/projectsfiles/plasma/pubs/plasma.tar.gz[LIBRARY] + Download http://icl.cs.utk.edu/projectsfiles/plasma/pubs/plasma-installer.tar.gz[INSTALLER] + PLASMA software and documentation is also available online on the PLASMA website: http://icl.cs.utk.edu/plasma/ + Copyright ~~~~~~~~~ PLASMA is a freely-available software package. It is available from netlib via anonymous ftp and the World Wide Web at http://www.netlib.org/plasma . + Thus, it can be included in commercial software packages. We only ask that proper credit be given to the authors. Like all software, it is copyrighted ( http://www.netlib.org/plasma/LICENSE ) . + It is not trademarked, but we do ask the following: **** If you modify the source for these routines we ask that you change the name of the routine and comment the changes made to the original. **** We will gladly answer any questions regarding the software. If a modification is done, however, it is the responsibility of the person who modified the routine to provide support. Installation ------------ A *PLASMA installer* is available on PLASMA download page: http://icl.cs.utk.edu/plasma/software/ + It is a set of python scripts developed to ease the installation of the PLASMA library. It can automatically download, configure and compile the PLASMA library including its BLAS dependency. Publications ------------ A number of technical reports were written during the development of PLASMA and published as http://www.netlib.org/lapack/lawns/downloads/[LAPACK Working Notes] by the University of Tennessee. Feedback -------- Please send any comments or bug reports to the http://icl.cs.utk.edu/plasma/forum/[PLASMA User Forum] .