Arm Performance Libraries Release History

This page describes the changes between releases of Arm Performance Libraries (free variant).

To download and install the latest version of Arm Performance Libraries, see our downloads page.

A licensed version of Arm Performance Libraries is available as part of the Arm Allinea Studio commercial product. For more information, see the Arm Allinea Studio page. To view the release history for the version of Arm Performance Libraries in Arm Allinea Studio, see the Arm Allinea Studio release history.

Download Free Arm Performance Libraries (Free ArmPL)

Version 20.3.0

Released: September 09, 2020

What's new in 20.3.0

Arm Performance Libraries 20.3 covers the following releases:

  • Arm Performance Libraries 20.3.0 - Released 9th September, 2020

Release summary

Arm Performance Libraries 20.3 is available for the following versions of GCC:

  • GCC 7.1
  • GCC 8.2
  • GCC 9.3

Arm Performance Libraries

Additions and changes:

  • 20.3.0
    • As well as in the Arm Compiler for Linux package, the Arm Performance Libraries Reference Guide is now available in HTML format on the Arm Developer website:

      https://developer.arm.com/documentation/101004/latest/
    • Added new BLAS level 2 extension routines, ?GERB. Use the new routines to perform a generalized outer-product with an additional scaling parameter.
      For more information, see the online documentation:

      https://developer.arm.com/documentation/101004/2030/BLAS-Basic-Linear-Algebra-Subprograms/BLAS-level-2

      In this release, there is also improved performance for:

      • BLAS level 1 routines: ?NRM2 and ?ASUM
      • BLAS level 2 routines: ?GER, ?SYR, ?HER, ?SYR2, ?HER2, and ?GBMV
      • LAPACK routine: DGEEV (for small eigenvalue problems)

    • Improved single precision FFT performance.

    • Improved libamath performance for:

      • atan and atanf, in both scalar and Neon vector forms
      • SVE erf

Resolved issues:

  • 20.3.0
    • Fixed a performance degradation in ?SYMV routines that was introduced in 20.2.0.

Open technical issues:

  • 20.3.0
    • If you attempt to install the library using the `--install-to <installation-location>` option, the installer might generate a warning of the form: 'Installing...find:  '<installation-location>/arm-*-compiler-20.3*/lib/clang/*/ armpl_links': No such file or directory'. This warning is erroneous and does not impact the installation or function of the library.

    • The uninstall.sh script does not correctly uninstall a library that has been installed to a custom location. Instead, you will need to manually remove it from your filesystem. This limitation applies to non-root installations on rpm-based systems, and any relocated installations on Debian-based systems.


Release Note for Release History 20.3.0

Each Arm Performance Libraries package contains Release Notes that refer to the version of GCC supported in that package. To save repetition, one version of the Release Notes is stated below with GCC versions references generalized to {7.1|8.2|9.3}.

To check which version of GCC your package supports, see the RELEASE_NOTES.txt file in <install-directory>/share.

Arm Performance Libraries 20.3.0 Release Note
=============================================

Non-Confidential
Copyright © 2015-2020, Arm Limited (or its affiliates). All rights reserved.

Non-Confidential Proprietary Notice
===================================

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practice or implementation of the information contained in this document may be
protected by one or more patents or pending patent applications. No part of this
document may be reproduced in any form by any means without the express prior
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otherwise to any intellectual property rights is granted by this document
unless specifically stated.

Your access to the information in this document is conditional upon your
acceptance that you will not use or permit others to use the information for
the purposes of determining whether implementations infringe any third party
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THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS”. ARM PROVIDES NO REPRESENTATIONS AND NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE
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OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE WITH RESPECT TO THE DOCUMENT. For the
avoidance of doubt, Arm makes no representation with respect to, and has
undertaken no analysis to identify or understand the scope and content of,
patents, copyrights, trade secrets, or other rights.

This document may include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors.

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Copyright © 2015-2020, Arm Limited (or its affiliates). All rights reserved.

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110 Fulbourn Road, Cambridge, England CB1 9NJ.

(LES-PRE-20349)

Confidentiality Status
----------------------

This document is Non-Confidential. The right to use, copy and disclose this
document may be subject to license restrictions in accordance with the terms
of the agreement entered into by Arm and the party that Arm delivered this
document to.

Unrestricted Access is an Arm internal classification.

Product Status
--------------

The information in this document is Final, that is for a developed product.

Web Address
-----------

www.arm.com

Contents
========

- Conventions
- Release overview
- Release contents
- Get started
- Support
- Release History

Conventions
===========

The following subsections describe conventions used in Arm documents.

Glossary
--------

The Arm Glossary is a list of terms that are used in Arm documentation, together
with definitions for those terms. The Arm Glossary does not contain terms that
are industry standard unless the Arm meaning differs from the generally accepted
meaning.

See the Arm Glossary for more information: https://developer.arm.com/glossary.

Release overview
================

Use of the free of charge version of Arm Performance Libraries is subject to the
terms and conditions of the applicable End User License Agreement (“EULA”). A
copy of the EULA can be found in the 'license_terms' folder of your product
installation.

Product description
-------------------

The Arm Performance Libraries 20.3.0 package provides
GCC {7.1|8.2|9.3}-compatible libraries that:

  - Run on all Armv8-A AArch64 64-bit-based implementations.
  - Are optimized for Arm® Neoverse™ N1-based implementations.

Release Status
--------------

This is the 20.3.0 release of Arm Performance Libraries.

These deliverables are being released under the terms of the agreement between
Arm and each licensee (the "Agreement"). All planned verification and
validation is complete.
The release is suitable for volume production under the terms of the Agreement.

Release contents
================

The following sub-sections describe:
- The product parts that are delivered as part of this release.
- Any changes since the previous release.
- Any known issues and limitations that exist at the time of this release.

Deliverables
------------

- Arm Performance Libraries 20.3.0
- Release Notes (this document)
- Documentation (product documentation is available on the Arm Developer
  website at:

  https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/server-and-hpc/downloads/arm-performance-libraries)

  Documentation may change between product releases. For the latest
  documentation bundle, check the delivery platform.

  Arm tests its PDFs only in Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader. Arm cannot
  guarantee the quality this document when used with any other PDF reader.
  A suitable file reader can be downloaded from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com

Differences from previous release
---------------------------------

The following subsections describe differences from the previous release of
Arm Performance Libraries.

Additions and changes:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Describes new features or components added, or any technical changes to
features or components, in this release.

- As well as in the Arm Compiler for Linux package, the Arm Performance
  Libraries Reference Guide is now available in HTML format on the Arm
  Developer website: https://developer.arm.com/documentation/101004/latest/.

- Added new BLAS level 2 extension routines, ?GERB. Use the new routines to
  perform a generalized outer-product with an additional scaling parameter.
  For more information, see the online documentation:
  https://developer.arm.com/documentation/101004/2030/BLAS-Basic-Linear-Algebra-Subprograms/BLAS-level-2.
  In this release, there is also improved performance for:

  * BLAS level 1 routines: ?NRM2 and ?ASUM

  * BLAS level 2 routines: ?GER, ?SYR, ?HER, ?SYR2, ?HER2, and ?GBMV

  * LAPACK routine: DGEEV (for small eigenvalue problems)

- Improved single precision FFT performance.

- Improved libamath performance for:

  * atan and atanf, in both scalar and Neon vector forms

  * SVE erf

Resolved issues:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Describes any technical issues resolved in this release.

- Fixed a performance degradation in ?SYMV routines that was introduced in
  20.2.0.

Known limitations
-----------------

The following subsection describes any issues known at the time of this release.

Open technical issues:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Describes any technical issues that are open at the time of this release.

- If you attempt to install the library using the
  `--install-to <installation-location>` option, the installer might generate a
  warning of the form: 'Installing...find:
  '<installation-location>/arm-*-compiler-20.3*/lib/clang/*/ armpl_links': No
  such file or directory'. This warning is erroneous and does not impact the
  installation or function of the library.

- The uninstall.sh script does not correctly uninstall a library that has been
  installed to a custom location. Instead, you will need to manually remove it
  from your filesystem. This limitation applies to non-root installations on
  rpm-based systems, and any relocated installations on Debian-based systems.

Get started
===========

This section describes information to help you get started with accessing,
setting up, and using Arm Performance Libraries.

For more information, see the Get Started information on the Arm Developer
website:

  https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/server-and-hpc/downloads/arm-performance-libraries

Licensing information
---------------------

Use of the free of charge version of Arm Performance Libraries is subject to the
terms and conditions of the applicable End User License Agreement (“EULA”). A
copy of the EULA can be found in the 'license_terms' folder of your product
installation.

You do not require a license to use this Arm Performance Libraries package.

Prerequisites
-------------

If any of the following tools are not already installed by your Linux
distribution, you must install them before installing Arm Performance Libraries:

- Python (version 2.7 or later)
- C Libraries:
   - SUSE and RHEL: glibc-devel
   - Ubuntu:        libc6-dev

Download the product
--------------------

Arm delivers the files through the Arm Developer website:

  https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/server-and-hpc/downloads/arm-performance-libraries

Unpack the product
------------------

The following steps describe how to unpack each constituent part delivered in
this bundle:

1. Relocate the bundle file. Move the .tar files to the directory you want to
   install the product in.

2. Extract the tar file contents using a tar utility:

     tar -xvf arm-performance-libraries_20.3_gcc-{7.1|8.2|9.3}.tar

Directory structure:
--------------------

Shows the principal directory structure of this release created after unpacking
the bundle:

  license_terms/
  arm-performance-libraries_<version>_*.sh
  RELEASE_NOTES.txt

Install the product
-------------------

To install Arm Performance Libraries, run the installation script as a
privileged user and pass any options to configure the installation:

  ./arm-performance-libraries_<version>_*.sh <option> <option>

Some common installation options are:

- For a headless installation and to automatically accept the EULA, use
  the '--accept' option.
- To perform a local install, use the '--install-to <dir>' option.

For a full list of supported installation options, see:

  https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/server-and-hpc/downloads/arm-performance-libraries

The installer displays the EULA and prompts you to agree to the terms. Type
'yes' at the prompt to continue.

The packages are unpacked to
<install_location>/arm-performance-libraries_20.3_gcc-{7.1|8.2|9.3},
and <install_location>/armpl_20.3_gcc-{7.1|8.2|9.3},
with environment modulefiles available under <install_location>/modulefiles. The
default installation location is /opt/arm/. Local installs have the same
directory structure starting from your chosen installation root.

RPMs
----

The installed packages are shipped as RPMs for RPM based Linux distributions.
These RPMs are signed by Arm's HPC GPG key. The public key can be downloaded
from:

  https://developer.arm.com/-/media/files/keys/GPG-PUB-KEY-ARM-HPC-SW-TOOLS.PUB

This key can be imported by running:

  rpm --import GPG-PUB-KEY-ARM-HPC-SW-TOOLS.PUB

More information about Environment Modules can be found at:

http://modules.sourceforge.net


Run the product
---------------

1. Load the environment module.

     module load <install_location>/modulefiles/armpl/20.3.0_gcc-{7.1|8.2|9.3}

2. To generate an executable binary with GCC, compile your program with Arm
   Performance Libraries. Use:

     gcc -I<install_dir>/include -L<install_dir>/lib <-larmpl> -lgfortran -lm [options] -o <binary> <input>

   or

     gfortran -I<install_dir>/include -L<install_dir>/lib <-larmpl> -lm [options] -o <binary> <input>

   where:

   - <-larmpl> is one of: -larmpl, -larmpl_lp64, -larmpl_ilp64, -larmpl_lp64_mp,
     or -larmpl_ilp64_mp.
   - [options] denotes any other GCC compiler options
   - <input> is the source file (or files)
   - <binary> is the application executable to build

3. Run the generated binary <binary>:

     ./<binary>

Examples
--------

Example code can be found at:

<install_location>/armpl_20.3_gcc-{7.1|8.2|9.3}/examples

You need to copy this code to a writeable directory and load Arm Performance
Libraries environment module for the examples to build.

For example:

1. Copy the examples somewhere writeable:

     cp -r <install_location>/armpl_20.3_gcc-{7.1|8.2|9.3}/examples ./
     cd examples

2. Load the correct environment modules:

     module load <install_location>/modulefiles/armpl/20.3.0_gcc-{7.1|8.2|9.3}

3. Build the examples:

     make

Uninstall
---------

For convenience, this package includes an "uninstall.sh" script at:

  <install_location>/arm-performance-libraries_20.3_gcc-{7.1|8.2|9.3}/uninstall.sh

This script attempts to uninstall all the components supplied as part of
Arm Performance Libraries. However, if other packages outside of this product
depend on the GNU GCC component, GNU GCC will not be uninstalled.

If you require support when uninstalling any version of Arm Performance
Libraries, contact support-hpc-sw@arm.com.

Support
=======

Documentation for using this Arm Performance Libraries package is available on
the Arm Developer website at:

  https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/server-and-hpc/downloads/arm-performance-libraries

Reference documentation for the supported routines in Arm Performance Libraries
is available at:

  https://developer.arm.com/docs/101004/latest

If you have any issues with the installation, content or use of this release,
create a ticket on https://support.developer.arm.com. Arm will respond
as soon as possible.

These deliverables are being released under the terms of the agreement between
Arm and each licensee (the “Agreement”). All planned verification and
validation is complete. The release is suitable for volume production under
the terms of the Agreement.

Note: Support for this release of the product is only provided by Arm to
partners who have a current support and maintenance contract for the product.

OS
--

This suite is supported on the following Linux platforms:

- AArch64 Redhat 7 and 8
- AArch64 SUSE 12 and 15
- AArch64 Ubuntu 16.04+

Full information about the platforms supported by Arm Performance Libraries is
available on the Arm Developer website:

  https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/server-and-hpc/downloads/arm-performance-libraries

Release history
===============

A full release history (with release notes) for Arm Performance Libraries is
available on the Arm Developer website:

  https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/server-and-hpc/downloads/arm-performance-libraries/release-history