Back to results

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Unfield sparse formats for tensor algebra compilers

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Tensor algebra is a powerful tool for computing on multidimensional data and has applications in many fields. Practical applications often deal with tensors that are sparse, and there exists a wide variety of formats for storing such tensors, each suited to specific types of applications and data. Examples of sparse tensor storage formats include COO, CSR, CSC, DCSR, BCSR, CSF, CSB, ELL, DIA, and hash maps. In this thesis, we propose a levelized hierarchical abstraction that represents these seemingly disparate formats and countless others, and that hides the details of each format behind a common interface. We show that this tensor representation facilitates automatic generation of efficient compute kernels for tensor algebra expressions with any combination of formats. This is accomplished with a code generation algorithm that generates code level by level, guided by the capabilities and properties of the levels. The performance of tensor algebra kernels generated using our technique is competitive with that of equivalent hand-implemented kernels in existing sparse linear and tensor algebra libraries. Furthermore, our technique can generate many more kernels for many more formats than exist in libraries or are supported by existing compiler techniques.

Degree

thesis:*
Department dc:contributor.department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Year dc:date.issued
2018

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Chou, Stephen (Computer scientist) Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Saman Amarasinghe.

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.
Language dc:language.iso
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115625
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/115625

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
MIT
Base URL
dspace.mit.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Chou, Stephen (Computer scientist) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Unfield sparse formats for tensor algebra compilers. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115625