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What is Hybridizer?

The aim of the Hybridizer is to let developers seamlessly use different hardware execution environments. It integrates in the compilation toolchain: from an intermediate language, it generates source code for different types of architectures. The Hybridizer abstracts the specific SDK and language features of processors, hence reducing the learning curve to many-core processor enablement.

Hybridizer in Operation​

The Hybridizer operates on intermediate language — code that has been compiled to be either executed by a virtual machine or compiled to machine code. The supported input intermediate languages are:

Input LanguageDescription
MSILMicrosoft Intermediate Language — the .NET platform
LLVM-IRThe intermediate representation of LLVM

Then, depending on the selected Flavor (see Platforms & Flavors), the Hybridizer generates source code with all the necessary annotations and code hints to make use of the specific features of each hardware architecture.

Hybridizer Overview

From a single version of the source intermediate language, several platforms may be targeted.

Key Concepts​

  • Single-source: Write idiomatic C#; Hybridizer compiles MSIL to native code.
  • Multiple backends: CUDA kernels, OpenMP+CUDA, and vector backends (AVX/AVX512/NEON/POWER).
  • Performance: Leverages backend-specific optimizations (e.g., SIMT on GPU, SIMD on CPU).
  • Interoperability: Generated code is callable from your .NET host.

Known Limitations​

As of today, the following constructs are not supported within the code to be transformed:

  • Allocating class instances (heap data)
  • string type
  • Catching and throwing exceptions (only partially supported)
  • lock regions
  • foreach (as it uses try/catch and heap-related operations)
  • Recursion (though similar features may be achieved using interfaces)
  • Generic functions (generic types are supported)
  • Some combinations of generic types with vectorization (C++ targets such as AVX)
note

These limitations only apply to the code that will be transformed to accelerator code. Your host code has no such restrictions.

Next Steps​