Khronos Reveals Vulkan API

The Khronos Group, an open consortium of hardware and software companies, has started previewing of the Vulkan open standard API (application programming interface). The technology is designed for high-efficiency access to graphics and compute on modern GPUs (graphics processing units).

The Vulkan is a unified specification that, according to the organization, minimizes driver overhead and enables multi-threaded GPU command preparation.

The group also noted that the OpenCL 2.1 and Vulkan are sharing core intermediate language technologies, which results in SPIR-V, an advancement in the Khronos Standard Portable Intermediate Representation. The SPIR-V splits the compiler chain, which enables high-level language font ends to emit programs in a standardized intermediate form.

“Vulkan is a significant Khronos initiative to provide developers the choice of a state-of-the-art GPU API that is open and portable across multiple platforms, at a time where platform diversity is increasing,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and vice president at NVIDIA. “Khronos will be driving the Vulkan ecosystem with open source conformance test components and sample front-end compiler implementations that use SPIR-V to leverage the hardware community’s investment in optimized back-end drivers. Vulkan expands the family of Khronos 3D APIs, and complements OpenGL and OpenGL ES that between them, provide access to billions of GPUs today, and will continue to be evolved and maintained to meet industry needs.”

For more information, visit Khronos Group.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.