2024/25 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

COMP3221 Parallel Computation

10 creditsClass Size: 250

Module manager: Dr David Head
Email: D.Head@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2024/25

Pre-requisites

COMP1711

Procedural Programming

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Module summary

With single processor performance peaking and the demand for processing time not diminishing parallel hardware and programming is increasingly important. This importance is not exclusively felt in the high-performance computing disciplines but also on commodity hardware as end user becomes more demanding. This module introduces the fundamental principles and issues underlying a range of parallel technologies and provides practical experiences in writing and evaluating programs on a set of architectures including multi-core CPU, GPU, and MPI for distributed parallelism.

Objectives

This module will introduce the fundamental skills and knowledge required to develop parallel computer software.

Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this module a student will have demonstrated the ability to:

- recall key concepts of parallel software and hardware.
- apply parallel design paradigms to serial algorithms.
- evaluate and select appropriate parallel solutions for real world problems.
- generalise parallel concepts to future hardware and software developments.

Skills outcomes
Programming, design, performance measurement, evaluation.

Syllabus

This module covers the following 3 topic areas:

- Parallel programming design patterns: work pools, data parallelism, synchronisation, locks, MapReduce and atomic instructions.
- Parallel computation models: shared memory parallelism (SMP), distributed memory parallelism and general-purpose graphics processing unit (GPGPU).
- Common frameworks: OpenMP, Message passing interface (MPI) and OpenCL.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lecture	22	1.00	22.00
Practical	10	1.00	10.00
Private study hours			68.00
Total Contact hours			32.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			100.00

Private study

Taught session preparation: 10 hours
Taught session follow-up: 22 hours
Self-directed study: 10 hours
Assessment activities: 24 hours

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Coursework and labs.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
In-course Assessment	Open MP/C code	15.00
In-course Assessment	MPI-C code	20.00
In-course Assessment	OpenCL code	15.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		50.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated.

Exams

Exam type	Exam duration	% of formal assessment
Standard exam (closed essays, MCQs etc)	2 hr 00 mins	50.00
Total percentage (Assessment Exams)		50.00

This module will be reassessed by exam only.

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 25/09/2024 09:18:38

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