Review of parallel and distributed architectures for micromagnetic codes

Abstract

Purpose

Rapid advancements in computer technologies over the past decade have recorded significant growth in the area of computational micromagnetics. As a result, current micromagnetic codes exploit the scalability offered by parallel and distributed computer architectures to deliver maximum performance. The purpose of this paper is to present a review, which explores various aspects of this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors arrange the theme for this paper around the micromagnetic code development process. The review involves a discussion of the micromagnetic model, some new parallel architectures, and computational aspects based on different numerical methods.

Findings

As current micromagnetic code is not readily portable to different architectures, most of the development effort goes towards this area, with a focus on writing/rewriting code for streaming hardware (particularly graphic cards).

Originality/value

The paper identifies key challenges and avenues for further research on computational aspects of micromagnetic modelling and suggests recommendations based on the review.

Citation

Khan, O., Khan, F., Ragusa, C. and Montrucchio, B. (2013), "Review of parallel and distributed architectures for micromagnetic codes", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 32 No. 6, pp. 1891-1900. https://doi.org/10.1108/COMPEL-10-2012-0271