Using Intel® Math Kernel Library on Intel® Xeon Phi™ Coprocessors

Intel® Math Kernel Library (Intel® MKL) offers two sets of libraries to support Intel® Many Integrated Core (Intel® MIC) Architecture:

• For the host computer based on Intel® 64 or compatible architecture and running a Linux* operating system
• For Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessors

You can control how Intel MKL offloads computations to Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessors. Either you can offload computations automatically or use Compiler Assisted Offload:

• Automatic Offload.

  On Linux* OS running on Intel® 64 or compatible architecture systems, Automatic Offload automatically detects the presence of coprocessors based on Intel MIC Architecture and automatically offloads computations that may benefit from additional computational resources available. This usage model allows you to call Intel MKL routines as you would normally with minimal changes to your program. The only change needed to enable Automatic Offload is either the setting of an environment variable or a single function call. For details see Automatic Offload.

• Compiler Assisted Offload.

  This usage model enables you to use the Intel compiler and its offload pragma support to manage the functions and data offloaded to a coprocessor. Within an offload region, you should specify both the input and output data for the Intel MKL functions to be offloaded. After linking with the Intel MKL libraries for Intel MIC Architecture, the compiler provided run-time libraries transfer the functions along with their data to a coprocessor to carry out the computations. For details see Compiler Assisted Offload.

In addition to offloading computations to coprocessors, you can call Intel MKL functions from an application that runs natively on a coprocessor. Native execution occurs when an application runs entirely on Intel MIC Architecture. Native mode is a fast way to make an existing application run on Intel MIC Architecture with minimal changes to the source code. For more information, see Running Intel MKL on an Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor in Native Mode.

Intel MKL functionality offers different levels of support for Intel MIC Architecture:

• Optimized - the following components are tuned for the Intel MIC Architecture:

  • Several BLAS (level 1, 2, and 3), Sparse BLAS, and LAPACK routines.
  • Vector Math Library (VML) and Vector Statistical Library (VSL), including random number generators (RNG).
  • Fast Fourier transforms.

  Please see the Release Notes for details.

• Unsupported - Poisson Solver, Iterative Sparse Solvers, and Trust Region Solvers.

• Supported - all other functionality runs on Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors.

• Automatic Offload
  
• Compiler Assisted Offload
  
• Using Automatic Offload and Compiler Assisted Offload in One Application
  
• Running Intel MKL on an Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor in Native Mode
  
• Threading Behavior of Intel MKL on Intel MIC Architecture
  
• Improving Performance on Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessors