Intel releases OpenCL SDK for Linux

Processor manufacturer Intel has announced that the Linux version of its SDK for OpenCL Applications is now ready for production use. The XE 2013 version of the software development kit supports the current version, 1.2, of the vendor-independent OpenCL language specification, which is designed to standardise and simplify the development of code on heterogeneous computer systems. Intel says that developers will be able to utilise the potential of OpenCL 1.2 simultaneously on the CPUs and GPUs of the third and future generation of Intel Core processors.

Among the SDK's preferred target scenarios as listed by Intel are processing-intensive applications such as video editors, music software and photo editing software, which can, the company says, be accelerated or used more energy-efficiently with Intel's software development kit. The Windows variant (SDK for OpenCL Applications 2013) was released in April and supports Intel's HD graphics processor. The variant for RHEL 6 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SDK for OpenCL Applications XE 2013) doesn't, but it already has support for Xeon Phi coprocessors.

Significant recent changes mainly appear to affect the areas of performance in task scheduling, automated data prefetching, and implicit vectorisation. Intel says that faster data transfers to hosts/devices have also been registered. Further information can be found in the release notes.

(djwm)