Overview: Intel® MIC Architecture

This topic only applies to Intel® Many Integrated Core Architecture (Intel® MIC Architecture).

The Intel® compiler provides several elements to enable programming for and building binaries to run on the Intel® Many Integrated Core Architecture (Intel® MIC Architecture), including:

language extensions
compiler options
environment variables
attributes
keywords
intrinsics
class libraries
OpenMP* considerations

Code that is defined for offloading runs on an Intel® Xeon® processor-based host, running Linux* OS or Windows* OS, and on targets supporting Intel® MIC Architecture.

Programming for Intel® MIC Architecture

You can write parallel programs that can offload sections of code to run on Intel® MIC Architecture, or alternatively, that run natively on Intel® MIC Architecture. The compiler provides the following language extensions to facilitate programming for Intel® MIC Architecture:

Name	Description
`offload` pragma `offload_attribute` pragma `offload_transfer` pragma `offload_wait` pragma `prefetch/noprefetch` pragma	Pragmas to control the data transfer between the CPU and the coprocessor.
`_Cilk_offload` keyword `_Cilk_shared` keyword	Keywords to control the data transfer between the CPU and the coprocessor. The data to be exchanged between the CPU and the coprocessor can be arbitrarily complex.
`target` attribute	An attribute to place variables and functions on the target.
`__MIC__` macro `__KNC__` macro `__INTEL_OFFLOAD` macro	Predefined macros you can use when programming for Intel® MIC Architecture.
Intrinsics	Intrinsics for Intel® MIC Architecture.
Class libraries	Class libraries for SIMD operations.
APIs in offload.h	A set of functions for: dealing with multiple coprocessors calling functions on the CPU to modify the coprocessor's execution environment writing code that should not be built for CPU-only execution

Building for Intel® MIC Architecture

The compiler provides the following compiler options and environment variables that you can use when building a binary for Intel® MIC Architecture:

Compiler Option	Description
The negative form of [Q]offload	Ignores language constructs for offloading.
Qmic (Windows* OS) mmic (Linux* OS)	Builds an application that runs natively on Intel® MIC Architecture.
[Q]offload-attribute-target	Flags every global routine and global data object in the source file with the offload attribute `target(mic)`.
[Q]offload-option	Specifies options to be used for the specified target and tool.
[Q]opt-report-phase=offload	Specifies the `offload` optimizer phase to use when optimization reports are generated.
[Q]opt-assume-safe-padding	Determines whether the compiler assumes that variables and dynamically allocated memory are padded past the end of the object.
[Q]opt-streaming-cache-evict	Specifies the cache eviction level to be used by the compiler for streaming loads and stores.
[Q]opt-threads-per-core	Informs the compiler about the number of hardware threads per core that will be used for an application.

The following environment variables are only a few of the available environment variables for Intel® MIC Architecture:

Environment Variable	Description
MIC_STACKSIZE	Sets the stack size on the coprocessor.
MIC_ENV_PREFIX	Controls environment variables passed to the coprocessor.
MIC_PROXY_IO	Controls the I/O proxy of stderr and stdout.

Overview: Intel® MIC Architecture

Programming for Intel® MIC Architecture

Building for Intel® MIC Architecture

See Also