This chapter provides an introduction to the use of Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) as parallel computing devices. It describes the architecture, the available functionality and the programming model. Simple examples and references to freely available tools and resources motivate the reader to explore these new possibilities. An overview of the different applications of GPUs demonstrates their wide applicability, yet also highlights limitations of their use. Finally, a glimpse into the future of GPUs sketches the growing prospects of these inexpensive parallel computing devices
@InCollection{RuSt05PPDE,
author = {Martin Rumpf and Robert Strzodka},
title = {Graphics Processor Units: New Prospects for Parallel Computing},
booktitle = {Numerical Solution of Partial Differential Equations on Parallel Computers},
key = {ISBN: 3-540-29076-1},
pages = {89--134},
publisher = {Springer},
year = {2005},
editor = {Bruaset, Are Magnus and Tveito, Aslak},
volume = {51},
series = {Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering},
}