Acceleration of finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) using graphics processor units (GPU)

Author

Krakiwsky, Sean E. ; Turner, L.E. ; Okoniewski, Michal M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr., Comput. & Software Eng., Calgary Univ., Alta., Canada

Volume

2

fYear

2004

fDate

6-11 June 2004

Firstpage

1033

Abstract

The Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method is used extensively in areas of microwave engineering and optics. However, FDTD runs too slow for some simulations to be practical, especially when run on standard desktop computers. The suitability of dedicated hardware for the acceleration of FDTD computations has been investigated. It is demonstrated that standard consumer Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) can be used to accelerate FDTD simulations by a factor of over seven, relative to an Intel CPU of similar technology generation. With OpenGL as the Application Programming Interface (API), a standard commercial graphics card has been programmed to solve a 2-D electromagnetic scattering problem.

Keywords

application program interfaces; computer displays; computer graphic equipment; finite difference time-domain analysis; 2-D electromagnetic scattering problem; API; CPU; FDTD computations; acceleration; application programming interface; central processing unit; finite difference time domain; graphics processor units; microwave engineering; optics; standard commercial graphics card; standard desktop computers; two-dimensional electromagnetic scattering problem; Acceleration; Central Processing Unit; Computational modeling; Computer graphics; Computer simulation; Finite difference methods; Hardware; Microwave theory and techniques; Optical scattering; Time domain analysis;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium Digest, 2004 IEEE MTT-S International

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8331-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2004.1339160

Filename

1339160