[Beignet] [ANNOUNCE] Beignet 0.9.0 (2014-6-26)

[Zhigang Gong]

Beignet 0.9  (2014-06-26)
=========================

Beignet version 0.9 has been released. This is another major release of
Beignet. This release implements OpenCL 1.2 interfaces, and supports more
platforms. This release also brings about 10x ~ 20x performance improvement
compared to the version 0.8.

The highlighted improvements are as below:

 * Added 4th Generation Intel Core Processors support.
 * Added Intel "Bay Trail" platform with Intel HD Graphics support.
 * Significant performance improvement compared to 0.8. For Luxmark benchmark
   and some OpenCV performance test cases, we measured 10x-20x performance
   boost.
 * Compile speed up about 30% compared to 0.8.
 * Support OpenCL spec 1.2. Support printf in GPU kernel side which is very
   helpful for kernel debugging. Support both clLinkProgram and clCompileProgram
   which allow application to compile and link the opencl binaries at runtime
   and is faster than rebuilding everything. 
 * Support runtime library separate from the compiler backend. For mobile
   system which don't need to compile kernel dynamically, we can strip down
   the Beignet to less than 2MB. Which is very suitable for small footprint
   products.
 * Update documents including how to optimize kernels and how to do corss-compile
   etc.


Supported Targets
----------------------------------------
 * 3rd Generation Intel Core Processors
 * Intel “Bay Trail” platforms with Intel HD Graphics
 * 4rd Generation Intel Core Processors

Please be noted:
The 4rd Generation Inter Core Processors's support requires some Linux kernel
modification. You need to apply the patch at:
https://01.org/zh/beignet/downloads/linux-kernel-patch-hsw-support

Detail Improvements
-------------------

 * Implemented all mandatory APIs required by OpenCL spec 1.2,
   including clEnqueueFillBuffer, clEnqueueMarkerWithWaitList,
   clCreateProgramWithBuiltInKernels, 1D image and 1D image array
   2D image array support, clCreateSubDevice, clCompileProgram,
   clLinkProgram, clGetKernelArgInfo, clEnqueueMigrateMemObjects,
   clUnloadPlatformCompiler, clEnqueueFillImage etc.
 * Implement strict/non strict conformance mode and support dynamic
   switching between two modes.
 * Use IF/ENDIF to encode each basic block, thus we can introduce more
   structured instructions latter to do further optimization.
 * Optimize the bool type's processing. This can avoid many corner case of the
   bool value handling and save many instructions when encoding CMP/SEL
   instruction after the if/endif change.
 * Added two extension instruction __simd_any() and __simd_all().
 * Support runtime library detaching with the compiler backend. Could reduce the
   whole library to less than 2M if the backend library is not required, which is
   very suitable for embedded/mobile system.
 * Implement compact instruction.
 * Use dword load as much as possible by using logic shift to support shorter data load.
 * Use vector load/store as much as possible by gather contiguous load/store at LLVM IR layer.
 * Optimize long type's processing by changing the register layout.
 * Fixed the L3 cache configuration bug.
 * Optimize PHI MOV to eliminate unecessary phi copy as much as possible.
 * Use sample LD message to work around the int/uint type surface sampling restrication.
 * Support printf builtin functions which is very helpful for kernel debuging.
 * Implement uniform value analysis.
 * Implement post register allocation scheduling.

Git tag: Release_v0.9
Gitweb url: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/beignet
Download: https://01.org/sites/default/files/beignet-0.9.0-source.tar.gz
ea9a35eece91348813a513f6e5303c51  Beignet-0.9.0-Source.tar.gz
3b356e839a280d7c4d04ca87e8eeae4686dada93  Beignet-0.9.0-Source.tar.gz
158e57561b583a029ac79184d712c806431986dacb122d542e22365e375d19c6  Beignet-0.9.0-Source.tar.gz