Affiliations: School of Computer Science, University of Westminster,
Watford Road, Northwick Park, Harrow HA1 3TP, UK
Note: [] Corresponding author: Vladimir Getov, School of Computer
Science, University of Westminster, Watford Road, Northwick Park, Harrow HA1
3TP, UK. Tel.: +44 207 911 5917; Fax: +44 207 911 5906; E-mail:
V.S.Getov@wmin.ac.uk
Abstract: Java is receiving increasing attention as the most popular platform
for distributed computing. However, programmers are still reluctant to embrace
Java as a tool for writing scientific and engineering applications due to its
still noticeable performance drawbacks compared with other programming
languages such as Fortran or C. In this paper, we present a hybrid Java/Fortran
implementation of a parallel particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithm for plasma
simulations. In our approach, the time-consuming components of this application
are designed and implemented as Fortran subroutines, while less
calculation-intensive components usually involved in building the user
interface are written in Java. The two types of software modules have been
glued together using the Java native interface (JNI). Our mixed-language PIC
code was tested and its performance compared with pure Java and Fortran
versions of the same algorithm on a Sun E6500 SMP system and a Linux cluster of
Pentium~III machines.
