Porting the GTC code to the Earth Simulator computer

By: Dr. Stephane Ethier, CPPG, PPPL

In December 2003, US researchers had the opportunity to work at the Earth Simulator Center in Yokohama, Japan, as part of an LBNL benchmarking project to study and compare super-scalar and vector-parallel architectures. PPPL's Gyrokinetic Toroidal Code (GTC) was ported to the Earth Simulator computer and performance tests were carried out. This presentation will provide an overview of the Earth Simulator architecture, comparing it to the current super-scalar MPP machines prevalent in the US, as well as highlighting some of the differences with previous generations of vector computers. Challenges in vectorizing particle-in-cell codes, such as GTC, will be discussed and preliminary results will be presented.