GEMM-Based Level 3 BLAS: High-Performance Model Implementations and Performance Evaluation Benchmark

The level 3 Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS) are designed to perform various matrix multiply and triangular system solving computations. The development of optimal level 3 BLAS code is costly and time consuming, because it requires assembly level programming/thinking. However, it is possible to develop a portable and high-performance level 3 BLAS library mainly relying on a highly optimized GEMM, the routine for the general matrix multiply and add operation. With suitable partitioning, all the other level 3 BLAS can be defined in terms of GEMM and a small amount of level 1 and level 2 computations. Our contribution is two-fold. First, the model implementations in Fortran 77 of the GEMM-based level 3 BLAS, which are structured to effectively reduce data traffic in a memory hierarchy. Second, the GEMM-based level 3 BLAS performance evaluation benchmark, which is a tool for evaluating and comparing different implementations of the level 3 BLAS with the GEMM-based model implementati..