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“David Kirk and Wen-mei Hwu are pioneers in this increasingly important field, and their insights are invaluable and fascinating. This book will be the standard reference for years to come.” – Hanspeter Pfister, Harvard University

The first textbook of its kind, Programming Massively Parallel Processors: A Hands-on Approach launches today, authored by Dr. David B. Kirk, NVIDIA Fellow and former chief scientist, and Dr. Wen-mei Hwu, who serves at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Coordinated Science Laboratory, co-director of the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center and principal investigator of the CUDA Center of Excellence.

The textbook, which is 256 pages, is the first aimed at teaching advanced students and professionals the basic concepts of parallel programming and GPU architectures. Published by Morgan-Kauffman, it explores various techniques for constructing parallel programs and reviews numerous case studies.

With conventional CPU-based computing no longer scaling in performance and the world’s computational challenges increasing in complexity, the need for massively parallel processing has never been greater. GPUs have hundreds of cores capable of delivering transformative performance increases across a wide range of computational challenges. The rise of these multi-core architectures has raised the need to teach advanced programmers a new and essential skill: how to program massively parallel processors.

“I’d like to personally congratulate David and Wen-mei for writing this landmark book and enabling generations of student programmers to understand and exploit the massively parallel architecture of GPUs,” said Bill Dally, chief scientist at NVIDIA and former chairman of Stanford University’s computer science department. “As a former professor, I have seen firsthand how seminal texts like this can transform a field. I look forward to seeing the transformation of computing as students are inspired and guided to master GPU computing by this book.”

Among the book’s key features:

• First and only text that teaches how to program within a massively parallel environment
• Portions of the NVIDIA-provided content have been part of the curriculum at 300 universities worldwide
• Drafts of sections of the book have been tested and taught by Kirk at the University of Illinois
• Book utilizes OpenCL and CUDA C, the NVIDIA parallel computing language developed specifically for massively parallel environments

For more information on Programming Massively Parallel Processors: A Hands-on Approach, please visit the microsite. The book is available to purchase directly from Elsevier or Amazon.