Parallel Programming: Soon the Only Game in Town

Automation World (Well) - The news is not that parallel programming is here—it has been here for a long time. The news is that parallel programming will shortly be pervasive, from embedded systems, to computer aided design/computer assisted manufacturing (CAD/CAM) workstations, to supervisory systems, to high-performance computing clusters.

“We’re seeing more and more complex control algorithms,” says Casey Weltzin, product manager for LabView Real‑Time at test and automation supplier National Instruments Corp. (www.ni.com), in Austin, Texas. “Automation systems will need to be more reliable to incorporate more features. This will require greater processing speed. But we won’t get that performance by relying on faster clock rates to run traditional sequential programs faster. We’re not likely to move much above the current 3 gigahertz (GHz) because of fundamental power consumption and dissipation issues. Instead, we’ll get the performance by distributing the tasks that together solve a single problem across multi-core processors. The only way to realize the potential of these newer processors is with parallel programming strategies.”