NHSE Software Catalog

PETSc Package for Scientific Computing

url

http://www.mcs.anl.gov/petsc/petsc.html

abstract

PETSc stands for "Portable Extensible Tools for Scientific computing." It is
a library of routines for both uni- and parallel-processor computing.
Designing a scalable and portable numerical library requires consideration
of many factors, including choice of parallel communication technology,
data structures, and user interfaces. The PETSc package uses modern
software technology to provide a portable, flexible, and extensible library
environment. Thus, the package serves a wide range of users with varying
needs and different levels of experience, including algorithmic researchers as
well as black-box and high-performance application programmers.
We use an aggressive data-structure-neutral implementation that minimizes
dependence on particular data structures (even vectors). This approach
permits separation of the implementation language from the user-interface
language and enables the library to adapt to the user, rather than the other
way around. Issues of parallelism are separated from the choice of
algorithms.
The PETSc software may be used with either C or Fortran.
PETSc includes the following packages:
Chameleon,
BlockComm,
KSP,
SLES,
SMEIT,
SNES

keywords

numerical library; architecture independence

environment

PETSc is available on Sun, DEC, Silicon Graphics, and IBM RS/6000
workstations; IBM SP; Intel iPSC/860, DELTA, and Paragon;; Convex; and
Cray machines.

contact

William Gropp / gropp@mcs.anl.gov