Graphics Processing Unit Programming and Applications

In this chapter, we shall introduce the reader to the field of graphic processing unit programming (GPU) and applications. The main goal is to show the advantages of using GPUs for problem-solving of scientific applications that require intensive computation. Specifically, we have focused this chapter in giving an introduction to the Compute Unified Device Architecture-CUDA™-which is a parallel computing platform and programming model of the NVIDIA Company. CUDA is one of the most well-known and used GPU programming framework. As a case study, we present the computational intensive task of generating the Mandelbrot fractal programmed sequentially, and the application of the CUDA™ for breaking down this computational problem with the aim of showing the benefits of using GPUs.