An Evaluation of HPF Compilers and the Implementation of a Parallel Linear Equation Solver Using HPF and MPI

In this work, we evaluated the capabilities and performances of two commercially available HPF compilers, xlhpf from IBM and pghpf from the Portland Group. In particular, we examined the suitability of the two compilers for the development of a reservoir simulator. Because of the nature of reservoir simulation, multiple data distributions and data transfer between arrays of different data layouts are of great importance. An HPF compiler that does not provide these capabilities is unsuitable for the development of a parallel reservoir simulator. A detailed comparison of the functionalities of the two compilers and their suitabilities for reservoir simulator development are presented. To test the performance of the compilers, we used several reservoir simulator kernels and a parallel linear equation solver. The solver is based on preconditioned Orthomin and a truncated Neumann series preconditioner. It was first implemented in HPF and later in MPI using hpf_local to improve the performance. Its computational performance was compared for several MPP machines: CM5, IBM SP2, Cray T-3E and Cray Origin.