The design and implementation of a verification technique for GPU Kernels
File(s)paper.pdf (2.18 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We present a technique for the formal verification of GPU kernels, addressing two classes of correctness properties: data races and barrier divergence. Our approach is founded on a novel formal operational semantics for GPU kernels termed <i>synchronous, delayed visibility (SDV)</i> semantics, which captures the execution of a GPU kernel by multiple groups of threads. The SDV semantics provides operational definitions for barrier divergence and for both inter- and intra-group data races. We build on the semantics to develop a method for reducing the task of verifying a massively parallel GPU kernel to that of verifying a sequential program. This completely avoids the need to reason about thread interleavings, and allows existing techniques for sequential program verification to be leveraged. We describe an efficient encoding of data race detection and propose a method for automatically inferring the loop invariants that are required for verification. We have implemented these techniques as a practical verification tool, GPUVerify, that can be applied directly to OpenCL and CUDA source code. We evaluate GPUVerify with respect to a set of 162 kernels drawn from public and commercial sources. Our evaluation demonstrates that GPUVerify is capable of efficient, automatic verification of a large number of real-world kernels.
Date Issued
2015-05
Date Acceptance
2015-03-01
Citation
ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 2015, 37 (3), pp.1-49
ISSN
1558-4593
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Start Page
1
End Page
49
Journal / Book Title
ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems
Volume
37
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© ACM, 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, {VOL# 37, ISS# 3, (18 June 2015)} https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2743017
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2743017
Grant Number
287767
EP/G051100/2
EP/K011499/1
EP/I006761/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Computer Science, Software Engineering
Computer Science
Theory
Verification
GPUs
concurrency
data races
barrier synchronization
PREDICATE ABSTRACTION
AUTOMATIC-ANALYSIS
MODEL CHECKING
INVARIANTS
PROGRAMS
VERIFIER
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
10
Date Publish Online
2015-05