Intel® oneAPI

Math Kernel Library

implements

FORTRAN 77 routines from the BLACS (Basic Linear Algebra Communication Subprograms) package. These routines are used to support a linear algebra oriented message passing interface that may be implemented efficiently and uniformly across a large range of distributed memory platforms.

The BLACS routines make linear algebra applications both easier to program and more portable. For this purpose, they are used in

Intel® oneAPI Math Kernel Library

intended for the Linux* and Windows* OSs as the communication layer of ScaLAPACK and Cluster FFT.

On computers, a linear algebra matrix is represented by a two dimensional array (2D array), and therefore the BLACS operate on 2D arrays. See description of the basic matrix shapes in a special

topic

.

The BLACS routines implemented in

Intel® oneAPI Math Kernel Library

are of four categories:

Combines
Point to Point Communication
Broadcast
Support.

The Combines take data distributed over processes and combine the data to produce a result. The Point to Point routines are intended for point-to-point communication and Broadcast routines send data possessed by one process to all processes within a scope.

The Support routines perform distinct tasks that can be used for initialization, destruction, information, and miscellaneous tasks.