Abstract:
Obsidian is a language for data-parallel programming embedded in Haskell. As the Obsidian programs are run, C code is generated. This C code can be compiled for an NVIDIA 8800 series GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), or for other high-end NVIDIA GPUs. The idea is that the style of programming used in Lava for structural hardware design [2] can be applied to data-parallel programming as well. Therefore Obsidian programmers use combinators that have much in common with those used in Lava. However, where Lava generates the netlist for a fixed-size circuit, Obsidian can generate GPU programs that are parametric in input size.