Intel® - Visual Fortran Compiler, Professional and Standard Editions, for Windows*

	Intel® Software Development Products for Intel® Platforms and Technologies

Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler 10.1, Professional and Standard Editions for Windows*

Overview	Features in Depth	Print
Features	Compatability
New in This Release	System Requirements

Overview

Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler 10.0 for Windows*

Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler Professional Edition offers the best support for creating multi-threaded applications. Only the Professional Edition offers the breadth of advanced optimization, multi-threading, and processor support that includes automatic processor dispatch, vectorization, auto-parallelization, OpenMP*, data prefetching, loop unrolling, substantial Fortran 2003 support, along with an optimized math processing library and Microsoft Visual Studio*.
Developers can now choose between three options, depending on their math processing needs.

The Professional Edition combines a high performance compiler with the Intel® Math Kernel Library (Intel® MKL).
The Professional Edition with IMSL* also includes the IMSL* Fortran Library for Windows
The Standard Edition compiler has the same performance and features as the Professional Edition compiler, but does not include Intel MKL or IMSL.

New – Intel® Compiler Suite Professional Edition for Windows. This suite includes all the features of the Intel Visual Fortran Compiler Professional Edition, but also includes the Intel C++ Compiler for Windows, Intel Threading Building Blocks, and Intel Integrated Performance Primitives for a more complete solution at significant price savings.

All editions except the Intel Compiler Suite Professional Edition now include Microsoft Visual Studio* 2005 Premier Partner Edition, providing a complete Fortran development environment.

Product Brief [PDF 646KB]

Features

The Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler for Windows* delivers rapid development and winning performance for the full range of Intel® processor-based platforms. It is a full-language Fortran 95 compiler with many features from the Fortran 2003 standard, plus a wide range of popular extensions.

Automatically optimize and parallelize software to take best advantage of multi-core Intel processors, including dual and quad-core mobile, desktop, and enterprise platforms.

Three compiler package choices now available

Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler for Windows* is available in three varieties, the Professional Edition, the Professional Edition with IMSL* and the Standard Edition. The Professional Edition combines a high performance compiler with the Intel® Math Kernel Library (Intel® MKL). The Professional Edition with IMSL provides all the components licensed in the Professional Edition and also includes the IMSL* Fortran Library for Windows*. The Standard provides the compiler without Intel MKL or IMSL. All editions include Microsoft Visual Studio 2005* Premier Partner Edition (except for evaluation and student license types).

Performance

Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler Professional Edition lets you choose the tools that get most out of multi-core processors by combining the Fortran compiler and its built-in optimization, threading, and security capabilities with a highly optimized math library that simplifies the introduction of robust, scalable, multi-threaded math functions.

Advanced Optimization Features

Software compiled using the Intel Visual Fortran Compiler for Windows benefits from advanced optimization features, a few of which are explained briefly here, with links to more complete descriptions:

	Multi-Threaded Application Support, including OpenMP* and auto-parallelization for simple and efficient software threading.
	Auto-vectorization parallelizes code to utilize the Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) instruction set architectures (SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, and SSE4) of our latest processors.
	High-Performance Parallel Optimizer (HPO)restructures and optimizes loops to ensure that auto-vectorization, OpenMP, or auto-parallelization best utilizes the processor’s capabilities for cache and memory accesses, SIMD instruction sets, and for multiple cores. This revolutionary capability, new in Version 10, combines vectorization, parallelization and loop transformations into a single pass which is faster, more effective and more reliable than prior discrete phases.
	Interprocedural Optimization (IPO)dramatically improves performance of small- or medium-sized functions that are used frequently, especially programs that contain calls within loops. The analysis capabilities of this optimizer can also give feedback on vulnerabilities and coding errors, such as uninitialized variables or OpenMP API issues, which cannot be detected as well by compilers which rely strictly on analysis by a compiler front-end.
	Profile-guided Optimization (PGO) improves application performance by reducing instruction-cache thrashing, reorganizing code layout, shrinking code size, and reducing branch mispredictions.

New in This Release

The Intel Visual Fortran Compiler for Windows builds on a winning foundation. Position yourself to create next-generation software, for next-generation hardware. The following features are new since Version 9 of the compiler.

What's new

Benefit to you

Self-contained product includes Microsoft Visual Studio* 2005 Premier Partner Edition, including improved integration in compiler version 10.1

Separate purchase of Microsoft development tools no longer required for developing Fortran applications to run on IA-32 or Intel® 64 architecture-based systems (please see System Requirements for details).

Version 10.1 enhancements include additional Microsoft Visual Studio customization settings and targeted user interface enhancements to provide increased flexibility and improved efficiency for users working with Intel compiler projects.

More Fortran 2003 Features, including Stream I/O

C Interoperability features make it easier to develop mixed-language applications. Asynchronous I/O enhances performance of applications which read and write large files. See the compiler Release Notes for a full list of supported Fortran 2003 features.

Intel® COM Server Wizard

An update of the popular feature from Compaq* Visual Fortran that enables you to create Fortran applications that are usable from the Microsoft .NET* managed code environment.

Improved Performance and Threading

New Parallel/Loop Optimizer

Better application performance for computationally intensive applications such as graphics/digital media, financial modeling, and high-performance computing for threaded and non-threaded applications. Our new High Performance Parallel Optimizer, HPO, offers an improved ability to analyze, optimize, and parallelize more loop nests.

Security Checking and Diagnostics

	Static Verifier for buffer overflow
	OpenMP* API verification

Ability to create code that is less susceptible to security vulnerabilities, such as buffer overflow. The diagnostics are very helpful for novice and expert users for catching common coding errors, from unitialized variables to mismatched dummy and actual arguments to OpenMP API coding issues.

Windows Vista* Support

Ability to develop applications on the latest OS from Microsoft.

Optimization Reports

More detailed optimization diagnostics for users who want to use our advanced optimizations to help the compiler do a better job at tuning their applications. The new VTune™ Analyzer 9.0 can filter optimization reports to help guide optimization efforts.

Code generation and optimization support for future Intel processors implementing the SSE4 instructions

Take advantage of Streaming SIMD Extensions 4 (SSE4) for delivering expanded capabilities, enhanced performance, and greater energy efficiency for many applications.

Options to enable more advanced optimizations for loop unrolling and streaming stores

Improved application performance

Additional sample programs demonstrating use of the Win32 API and QuickWin

Speed development by using working debugged code

Support for the Latest Multi-Core Processors
The Intel Fortran Compiler provides optimization support for the very latest multi-core processors, including:

	Intel® Core™2 Duo processor
	Intel® Core™2 Quad processor
	Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5300 series
	Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 3000 series
	Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5000 series
	Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 7000 series
	Dual-Core Intel® Itanium 2 processor

Intel® compilers future-proof your investment with assurance of world-class support for each successive generation of processors. That's a key advantage in a world where new hardware platforms come to market with awesome speed.

Support for auto-parallelization and OpenMP enable you to create optimized, multithreaded applications that take full advantage of multi-core processing features to deliver outstanding performance.

Professional Edition

Includes not only the advanced capabilities of the compiler, but also Intel® Threading Building Blocks, Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives, and Intel® Math Kernel Library with highly optimized functions for threading, math processing, and multimedia.

Professional Edition with IMSL*

Includes the compiler, Intel® MKL, and IMSL* Fortran Numeric Library 6.0 from Visual Numerics*. (Users of Intel® Visual Fortran 9.1 Professional Edition with a current support license are automatically upgraded to the Professional Edition with IMSL.)

Advanced Optimization Features in Depth

This section gives detailed descriptions of the compiler’s advanced optimization features.

Multi-Threaded Application Support

OpenMP and auto-parallelization help convert serial applications into parallel applications, allowing you to take full advantage of multi-core technology like the Intel® Core™ Duo processor and Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® 2 processor, as well as symmetric multi-processing systems:

	OpenMP* is the industry standard for portable multithreaded application development. It is effective at fine-grain (loop-level) and large-grain (function-level) threading. OpenMP directives are an easy and powerful way to convert serial applications into parallel applications, enabling potentially big performance gains from parallel execution on multi-core and symmetric multiprocessor systems.
	Auto Parallelization improves application performance on multiprocessor systems by means of automatic threading of loops. This option detects parallel loops capable of being executed safely in parallel and automatically generates multithreaded code. Automatic parallelization relieves the user from having to deal with the low-level details of iteration partitioning, data sharing, thread scheduling, and synchronizations. It also provides the performance benefits available from multiprocessor systems and systems that support Hyper-Threading Technology (HT Technology).
For more information on multi-threaded application support, visit Intel's Threading Developer Center.

High Performance, Parallel Optimizer (HPO)

This revolutionary capability, new in Version 10, combines automatic vectorization, automatic parallelization and loop transformations into a single pass which is faster, more effective and more reliable than prior discrete phases.

HPO optimizes and restructures program loops to ensure that auto-parallelization, OpenMP, and auto-vectorization occur smoothly in conjunction with each other. HPO’s optimization technology utilizes a unique cost-benefit analysis to make the right optimization decisions for the given program and loop structure. It will perform many transformations such as loop unrolling, peeling, interchange, splitting, etc., as well as other optimizations to ensure the processor’s cache architecture, SIMD instruction set, and multiple cores are well utilized.

Automatic Vectorizer

Vectorization automatically parallelizes code to maximize underlying processor capabilities. This advanced optimization analyzes loops and determines when it is safe and effective to execute several iterations of the loop in parallel by utilizing MMX™, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, and SSE4 instructions. Figure 1 is a graphical representation of a vectorized loop that shows four iterations computed with one SSE2 operation.		Figure 1. The Vectorizer in action
Use vectorization to optimize your application code and take advantage of these new extensions when running on Intel® processors. Features include support for advanced, dynamic data alignment strategies, including loop peeling to generate aligned loads and loop unrolling to match the prefetch of a full cache line.

Interprocedural Optimization (IPO)

Interprocedural optimization (IPO) can dramatically improve application performance in programs that contain many small- or medium-sized functions that are frequently used, especially for programs that contain calls within loops. This set of techniques, which can be enabled for automatic operation in the Intel® compilers, uses multiple files or whole programs to detect and perform optimizations, rather than focusing within individual functions.

Figure 1. The interprocedural optimization process

Figure 2. The interprocedural optimization process

The IPO process, shown in Figure 2, first requires that source files are compiled with the IPO option, creating object (.o) files that contain the intermediate language (IL) used by the compiler. Upon linking, the compiler combines all of the IL information and analyzes it for optimization opportunities. Typical optimizations made as part of the IPO process include procedure inlining and re-ordering, eliminating dead (unreachable) code, and constant propagation, or the substitution of known values for constants. IPO enables more aggressive optimization than what is available at the intra-procedural level, since the added context of multiple procedures makes those more-aggressive optimizations safe.

The analysis capabilities of IPO can also give feedback on vulnerabilities and coding errors, such as uninitialized variables, which cannot be detected as well by compilers which rely strictly on analysis by a compiler front-end.

Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO)

The Profile-guided optimization (PGO) compilation process enables the Intel Fortran Compiler to take better advantage of the processor microarchitecture, more effectively use instruction paging and cache memory, and make better branch predictions. It improves application performance by reorganizing code layout to reduce instruction-cache thrashing, shrinking code size, and reducing branch mispredictions.

PGO is a three-stage process, as shown in Figure 3. Those steps include 1) a compile of the application with instrumentation added, 2) a profile-generation phase, where the application is executed and monitored, and 3) a recompile where the data collected during the first run aids optimization. A description of several code size influencing profile-guided optimizations follows:

	Basic block and function ordering — Place frequently-executed blocks and functions together to take advantage of instruction-cache locality.
	Aid inlining decisions — Inline frequently-executed functions so the increase in code size is paid in areas of highest performance impact.
	Aid vectorization decisions — Vectorize high trip count and frequently-executed loops so the increase in code size is mitigated by the increase in performance.

Figure 3. Profile-guided optimization

Compatibility and Flexibility

Standards Compliance and Broad Compatibility

The Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler is designed to work with Microsoft development products and depends on certain components of these. It integrates with Microsoft Visual Studio* 2005, as well as Visual Studio .NET* 2003, and provides expanded 32-bit and 64-bit multi-core processor support.

The Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler 10.0 for Windows fully supports the Fortran 95 language standard, as well as the previous standards Fortran 90, Fortran 77 and Fortran IV. It also includes many features from the Fortran 2003 language standard, as well as numerous popular language extensions. Significant supported language extensions include:

	Quadruple precision REAL data type REAL(16)
	STRUCTURE, RECORD, UNION, MAP syntax for user-defined types
	Directives and functions to enhance mixed-language application development
	Binary stream I/O
For a complete list of language features, see the product documentation. The Intel Visual Fortran Compiler 10.0 for Windows also enhances programmer productivity with features such as:
	Run-time array and string bounds checking
	Cross-file procedure interface checking
	Run-time uninitialized variable detection
	Error traceback with file name and line number
The compiler also features extensive compatibility with Compaq Visual Fortran* including language extensions, predefined modules, and library routines.

Winning Performance across Application Domains

The Intel Visual Fortran Compiler for Windows delivers exceptional performance, usability, and business advantages to a wide variety of software markets.

		Next-generation data-intensive application developers benefit from dramatic performance optimizations using the Intel compilers to decrease latency and processing times, while also allowing software architects to add additional features without unacceptable impacts to performance.

		Scientific, research, and related applications benefit from fast compile times, high-performance execution, and solid technical support. Numerically intensive software can make excellent use of the parallelism in Intel processor-based platforms.

System Requirements

This section provides system requirements to develop applications for three different hardware platforms, which are described below.

Architecture Terminology
Intel compilers support three platforms: general combinations of processor and operating system type. This section explains the terms that Intel uses to describe the platforms in its documentation, installation procedures, and support site.

IA-32 architecture - IA-32 Architecture refers to systems based on 32-bit processors generally compatible with the Intel Pentium® II processor, (for example, Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or Intel® Xeon® processor), or processors from other manufacturers supporting the same instruction set, running a 32-bit operating system.

Intel® 64 architecture - Intel® 64 Architecture refers to systems based on IA-32 architecture processors which have 64-bit architectural extensions, for example, Intel® Core™2 processor family or Intel® Xeon® processor), running a 64-bit operating system such as Microsoft Windows XP* Professional x64 Edition or Microsoft Windows Vista* x64. If the system is running a 32-bit version of the Windows operating system, then IA-32 architecture applies instead. Systems based on the AMD* Athlon64* and Opteron* processors running a 64-bit operating system are also supported by Intel compilers for Intel® 64 architecture applications.

IA-64 architecture - Refers to systems based on the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor running a 64-bit operating system.

Native and Cross-Platform Development
The term "native" refers to building an application that will run on the same platform that it was built on, for example, building on IA-32 architecture to run on IA-32 architecture. The term "cross-platform" or "cross-compilation" refers to building an application on a platform type different from the one on which it will be run, for example, building on IA-32 architecture to run on Intel 64 architecture. Not all combinations of cross-platform development are supported, and some combinations may require installation of optional tools and libraries.

The following table describes the supported combinations of compilation host (system on which you build the application) and application target (system on which the application runs).

Host \ Target	IA-32 architecture	Intel® 64 architecture	IA-64 architecture
IA-32 architecture	Yes	Yes	Yes
Intel® 64 architecture	Yes	Yes	Yes
IA-64 architecture	No	No	Yes

This section provides system requirements to develop applications for various hardware platforms:
	Requirements to develop applications to run on systems with IA-32 or IntelR 64 architecture-based processors or AMD processors
	Requirements to develop applications to run on systems with IA-64 architecture-based processors (Intel® Itanium® processors)
	Target system requirements to run applications
Requirements to develop applications to run on systems with IA-32 or Intel® 64 architecture-based processors or AMD processors

Host Hardware Requirements

Component

Minimum

Recommended

Processor
(any one required)

A system based on an IA-32 architecture-based processor (minimum 450 MHz Intel® Pentium® II processor or greater), a system based on an Intel 64 architecture-based processor, or a system based on an AMD* Athlon* or AMD Opteron* processor

	Intel Core™ processor
	Intel® Xeon® processor

RAM

Other: 512 MB

Other: 1 GB

Disk Space

1 GB

Host Software Requirements

Operating System

Microsoft Windows Vista*, Windows* XP, or Windows Server* 2003

Other Software

Installation of additional Microsoft development software listed below is either optional or required, depending on your license type. It is optional for new or support renewal purchases of version 10.0 or 10.1 Commercial and Academic licenses and for users of Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler Professional Edition 9.1 or earlier with current support licenses. For all other license types including Evaluation, Student, and for users of Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler Standard Edition 9.1 and earlier, you must have one of the following Microsoft development products installed prior to installing Intel Visual Fortran Compiler 10.0 or 10.1:
	Microsoft Visual Studio* 2008 Standard, Professional or Team System Edition (with C++ component installed), or
	Microsoft Visual Studio* 2005 Standard, Professional or Team System Edition (with C++ component installed), or
	Microsoft Visual Studio .NET* 2003 (with C++ component installed, IA-32 architecture only), or
	Microsoft Visual C++ .NET* 2003 Standard Edition (IA-32 architecture only) or
	Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK or Windows Software Development Kit Update for Windows Vista* (Intel® 64 architecture only) If this Platform SDK is installed, you can develop applications for the Intel® 64 platform using command line tools. Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition (IA-32 architecture only) This enables use of the compiler from the command line only; the visual development environment, including the Visual Studio Debugger, is not enabled. For Fortran development with Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, you must also install Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK or Windows Software Development Kit Update for Windows Vista. If you choose this option, download and install the w_fc_x_10.1.xxx_IA32.exe package only; do not install a package that includes Microsoft Visual Studio Premier Partner Edition. On IA-32 and Intel® 64 architecture systems, if Microsoft Visual Studio is not found and the CD or w_fc_x_10.1.xxx.exe download installer is used, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Premier Partner Edition will be installed. Installers for single architectures and those with NOVSPPE in the name do not install Visual Studio 2005 Premier Partner Edition. Note:* Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002* is not supported

Requirements to develop applications to run on systems with IA-64 architecture-based processors (Intel® Itanium® processors)

Host Hardware Requirements

Component

Minimum

Recommended

Processor
(any one required)

A system based on an IA-32 architecture-based processor (minimum 450 MHz Intel® Pentium® II processor or greater), a system based on an Intel 64 architecture-based processor, a system based on an IA-64 architecture-based processor, or a system based on an AMD* Athlon* or AMD Opteron* processor

	Intel Core™ processor
	Intel® Xeon® processor

RAM

512 MB

1 GB

Disk Space

500 MB

1 GB

Host Software Requirements

Operating System

Microsoft Windows Vista*, Windows* XP, or Windows Server* 2003

Other Software

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System Edition with C++ component installed

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK

	Microsoft Visual Studio is not supported for installation on an IA-64 architecture-based system
	If Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System Edition is not installed, only the command line development tools are available

Target system requirements to run applications

Platform

Requirements

IA-32 architecture-based systems

An IA-32 architecture-based system running Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows Server 2003. Some applications may run on older versions of Windows - you are responsible for testing compatibility. IA-32 architecture-based applications may also be run on an Intel® 64 architecture-based system as described below.

Intel 64 architecture-based systems

A system based on an Intel® 64 architecture-based processor or an AMD Opteron processor running Windows Server* 2003 x64 Edition, Windows* XP Professional x64 Edition or Windows Vista* 64-bit

IA-64 architecture-based systems

A system based on an Intel® Itanium® processor running Windows XP 64-bit or Windows Server* 2003 (Enterprise and Datacenter Editions) Notes:
	Running applications on systems that do not have Intel Visual Fortran Compiler installed may require installation of redistributable DLLs on the target system.
	For applications which were built on a different platform, using cross-compilation, the Microsoft run-time DLLs on the target system must be the same or newer as those provided with the Platform SDK used for building the application

Notes:
The above lists of processor model names are not exhaustive - other processor models correctly supporting the same instruction set as those listed are expected to work. Please contact Intel® Premier Support if you have questions regarding a specific processor model.

Some optimization options have restrictions regarding the processor type on which the application is run. Please see the documentation of these options for more information.

Advanced optimization options or very large programs may require additional resources such as memory and disk space.

Adobe* Reader* version 7.0 or later is required to view some of the reference documentation.

It is the responsibility of application developers to ensure that the machine instructions contained in the application are supported by the operating system and processor on which the application is to run.

Intel provides both the tools and support to enhance the performance, functionality, and efficiency of software applications.

Compatible with leading Windows* and Linux* development environments, Intel® Software Development Products are the fastest and easiest way to take advantage of the latest features of Intel processors. Intel Software Development Products are designed for use in the full development cycle, and include Intel® Performance Libraries, Intel® Compilers (C++, Fortran for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS* X), Intel® VTune™ Analyzer, Intel® Threading Tools and Intel® Cluster Tools.

The Intel® Premier Support Web site provides expert technical support for all Intel software products, product updates and related downloads. For additional product information visit: www.intel.com/software/products.

Intel, the Intel logo, and VTune are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

*Other brands and names may be claimed as the property of others.