AMD Accelerates Application Development with Release of Open Source Perf Library

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that it has open sourced it’s AMD Performance Library (APL). Now referred to as “Framewave version 1.0,” the goal of this new open source project is to further enable the performance-optimized APL and expand its functionality beyond the existing core media capabilities, ensuring developers have an accelerated conduit to high performance application development. Contributions by partners, customers and the broader open-source software development community will accelerate library optimizations and feature enhancements in-line with their respective needs while AMD software engineers will continue to be dedicated contributors to the Framewave project.

With functionality today that spans from simple arithmetic routines to rich domains such as image and signal processing, Framewave provides a quick path to high performance development. It also offers aggressive internal threading features which manage sophisticated threading models to exploit multi-core and multiprocessor systems. With thousands of routines dedicated to image and signal processing, Framewave helps enable faster development of projects such as media players, codecs, image editors, audio applications and media streaming.

“As a long time supporter of open innovation and collaboration, AMD’s release of its APL code to the Framewave open source project represents another milestone contribution to the open source community. We believe that Framewave will quickly become a significant resource for developers, helping them to build faster, highly optimized and multi-threaded applications more efficiently,” said Earl Stahl, vice president of Software Development, AMD. “Developer collaboration is one of the cornerstones of AMD's software vision, so we are excited to see what innovations the community will develop leveraging Framewave.”

Evolution from APL to Framewave
The result of nearly three years of effort by over a dozen developers, Framewave is currently comprised of over 3200 high performance software routines that enable developers to more easily create highly optimized multi-threaded applications for x86-class processor platforms. Improved and expanded beyond APL, Framewave enables developers to write applications that better utilize the computing prowess of today’s advanced hardware solutions. Framewave is also application programming interface (API) compatible with the Intel Integrated Performance Primitives, simplifying the software development experience through the use of a common interface.

Addressing Industry Need
Developing applications that can fully exploit multi-core processor technology is challenging for software developers because of the demands of parallel programming. Leveraging the optimized software routines, developers are enabled to reduce a project’s software development complexity and ultimately help reduce its time-to-market.

“We applaud AMD’s decision to open source the Framewave library as we think it will only help accelerate the development of new multimedia applications that fully take advantage of multi-core x86 processors,” said Ed Leonard, CTO at Dreamworks Animation. “Dreamworks Animation continues to produce some of the world’s most creative and successful CGI films in part, because of the state-of-the-art technology we leverage every day. As an innovator and adopter of new technology, we commend AMD’s efforts with Framewave.”

Framewave has already experienced traction since it was uploaded for initial testing on SourceForge.net in December 2007. The APL library was previously available for download on AMD’s Developer Central, a resource portal for the developer community that delivers information, tools, and expert guidance about optimizing software development for AMD-based hardware.

AMD invites the developer community to download Framewave and begin contributing today at http://framewave.sourceforge.net/. For more information about AMD’s Developer Central, please visit http://developer.amd.com.

Framewave is licensed under the Apache License, version 2.0 which is compatible with version 3.0 of the GPL.

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.