PB-BLAS: a set of Parallel Block Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms

We propose a new library of routines for performing dense linear algebra computations on block-partitioned matrices. The routines are referred to as the Parallel Block Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (PB-BLAS), and their use is restricted to computations in which one or more of the matrices involved consists of a single row or column of blocks, and in which no more than one of the matrices consists of an unrestricted two-dimensional array of blocks. The functionality of the block BLAS routines can also be provided by Level 2 and 3 BLAS routines. The PB-BLAS consist of calls to the sequential BLAS for local computations, and calls to the BLACS for communication. The PB-BLAS are the building blocks for implementing ScaLAPACK, the distributed-memory version of LAPACK, and provide the sane ease-of-use and portability for ScaLAPACK that the BLAS provide for LAPACK