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3 <title>SIMD alignment and fftw_malloc - FFTW 3.2.1</title>
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12 <!--
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13 This manual is for FFTW
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14 (version 3.2.1, 5 February 2009).
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15
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16 Copyright (C) 2003 Matteo Frigo.
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17
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18 Copyright (C) 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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19
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20 Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
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29 Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
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47 <body>
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48 <div class="node">
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49 <p>
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50 <a name="SIMD-alignment-and-fftw_malloc"></a>
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51 <a name="SIMD-alignment-and-fftw_005fmalloc"></a>
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52 Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Stack-alignment-on-x86.html#Stack-alignment-on-x86">Stack alignment on x86</a>,
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53 Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="Data-Alignment.html#Data-Alignment">Data Alignment</a>,
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54 Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Data-Alignment.html#Data-Alignment">Data Alignment</a>
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55 <hr>
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56 </div>
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57
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58 <h4 class="subsection">3.1.1 SIMD alignment and fftw_malloc</h4>
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59
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60 <p>SIMD, which stands for “Single Instruction Multiple Data,” is a set of
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61 special operations supported by some processors to perform a single
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62 operation on several numbers (usually 2 or 4) simultaneously. SIMD
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63 floating-point instructions are available on several popular CPUs:
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64 SSE/SSE2 (single/double precision) on Pentium III and higher and on
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65 AMD64, AltiVec (single precision) on some PowerPCs (Apple G4 and
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66 higher), and MIPS Paired Single. FFTW can be compiled to support the
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67 SIMD instructions on any of these systems.
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68 <a name="index-SIMD-102"></a><a name="index-SSE-103"></a><a name="index-SSE2-104"></a><a name="index-AltiVec-105"></a><a name="index-MIPS-PS-106"></a><a name="index-precision-107"></a>
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69 A program linking to an FFTW library compiled with SIMD support can
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70 obtain a nonnegligible speedup for most complex and r2c/c2r
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71 transforms. In order to obtain this speedup, however, the arrays of
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72 complex (or real) data passed to FFTW must be specially aligned in
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73 memory (typically 16-byte aligned), and often this alignment is more
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74 stringent than that provided by the usual <code>malloc</code> (etc.)
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75 allocation routines.
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76
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77 <p><a name="index-portability-108"></a>In order to guarantee proper alignment for SIMD, therefore, in case
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78 your program is ever linked against a SIMD-using FFTW, we recommend
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79 allocating your transform data with <code>fftw_malloc</code> and
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80 de-allocating it with <code>fftw_free</code>.
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81 <a name="index-fftw_005fmalloc-109"></a><a name="index-fftw_005ffree-110"></a>These have exactly the same interface and behavior as
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82 <code>malloc</code>/<code>free</code>, except that for a SIMD FFTW they ensure
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83 that the returned pointer has the necessary alignment (by calling
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84 <code>memalign</code> or its equivalent on your OS).
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85
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86 <p>You are not <em>required</em> to use <code>fftw_malloc</code>. You can
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87 allocate your data in any way that you like, from <code>malloc</code> to
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88 <code>new</code> (in C++) to a fixed-size array declaration. If the array
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89 happens not to be properly aligned, FFTW will not use the SIMD
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90 extensions.
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91 <a name="index-C_002b_002b-111"></a>
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92 <!-- =========> -->
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93
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94 </body></html>
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95
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