Delivering standard programming models SoC - Codeplay

Codeplay is internationally recognized for expertise in Heterogeneous Systems, and has many years of experience in the development of Compilers, Runtimes, Debuggers, Test Systems, and other specialized tools. The company has delivered standards-compliant systems for some of the largest semiconductor companies in the world, focusing specifically on high-performance heterogeneous processor solutions for CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, FPGAs and other specialized imaging and vision processors. Working within The Khronos™ Group to define new open standards such as OpenCL™, SPIR™, SYCL™, and Vulkan^®, and leading the creation of new System Runtime and Tools standards through the HSA Foundation, Codeplay has earned a reputation as one of the leaders in compute systems.

The vast expertise gained in building optimized close-to-the-metal technology for customers has been utilized in developing Codeplay'sComputeSuite™ product. It combines the high-level ComputeCpp™ easy-to-use C++ standard development tools, with the low-level ComputeAorta™ heterogeneous runtime technology to ensure that open standards-based parallel software can run on the widest possible range of platforms and devices. By being modular and standards-based, software developers can mix and match components to ensure that their software runs anywhere and exploits the full power of the underlying system.

Throughout its history, Codeplay has also participated in international research projects, with partners from the largest hardware vendors to the most cutting-edge start-ups, and the expert academics in its field. The focus of these projects has covered optimizing high-performance graphics techniques at low power for mobile and embedded devices, ensuring that performance is portable and investigating its impact across a variety of different heterogeneous systems, and analyzing whether new compilation techniques can assist in making software faster and more power-efficient. The results of this research provide the drive for products that are made available to customers and associated developers.

The ComputeAorta™

ComputeAorta is Codeplay’s multi-target, multi-platform toolkit for rapidly enabling delivery of the OpenCL, SPIR and Vulkancompute standards.

Currently supporting Linux^®, Windows_® and Android™ operating systems across x86, ARM^®, and MIPS^® targets, ComputeAorta can also be easily customised to your hardware. Bringing C++ applications to a wide range of OpenCL accelerators using SYCL™

Codeplay believes that the full performance of today's highly parallel devices should not be locked down to one platform, but be available to all programmers by using open standards. That is why it is giving developers free, early access to ComputeCpp™, its implementation of the SYCL™ open standard. The SYCL standard from the Khronos™ Group is for developers who want to take software written using C++ single-source programming models like CUDA^® or C++AMP and port to a wide range of OpenCL™ devices. The current early-access ComputeCpp Community Edition release provides pre-conformance SYCL v1.2 support for AMD^® and Intel^® OpenCL GPUs and CPUs. Further operating system and device support is on its way. This version will let developers work on acceleration of open-source C++ software such as TensorFlow, Eigen and the C++ 17 Parallel STL.

The Company’s offering

Codeplay build, optimize and verify compilers for the full range of processor architectures, from CPUS to GPUs, DSPs, and other customer accelerators. Working together, Codeplay can help you build, optimize and test your compiler, ensuring high performance and standards conformance across the board.

The firm has developed a number of compilers based on the open-source Clang/LLVMtechnology and for over a decade with its legacy VectorC proprietary compiler technology. Whatever your choice, Codeplay has the experience and skill to make your compiler a reality.

The Face of the Firm

Andrew Richards | CEO

He started Codeplay with his co-founder, Uwe, to enable as many programmers as possible to accelerate their software and reduce power consumption on parallel processors. Together, the two have built up the company to be a world-leading team of engineers for high-performance, low-power systems. He also chairs a few standards groups so that the whole industry benefits from collaboration and its innovations. As a video-game developer, before starting Codeplay, he produced some of the earliest physics engines in videogames. The whole industry now accepts what the firm pioneered: moving software onto highly parallel graphics processors saves power and increases performance. He is very proud of the team he has built up here at Codeplay, who take on some really tough technology challenges in a friendly, helpful and professional way. He can often be seen playing football with my highly-intelligent border collie.

“We enable SoC manufacturers to unlock their hardware's potential for developers.”