Implementation of Scientific Computing Applications on the Cell Broadband Engine

The Cell Broadband Engine architecture is a revolutionary processor architecture well suited for many scientific codes. This paper reports on an effort to implement several traditional high-performance scientific computing applications on the Cell Broadband Engine processor, including molecular dynamics, quantum chromodynamics and quantum chemistry codes. The paper discusses data and code restructuring strategies necessary to adapt the applications to the intrinsic properties of the Cell processor and demonstrates performance improvements achieved on the Cell architecture. It concludes with the lessons learned and provides practical recommendations on optimization techniques that are believed to be most appropriate.