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Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation
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<p>The Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation (PETSc, pronounced PET-see; the S is silent), is a suite of <a href="/facts/Data_structures/yNsNvL1I">data structures</a> and <a href="/facts/Source_code/o9J6Jv23">routines</a> developed by <a href="/facts/Argonne_National_Laboratory/EAoR1Rnm">Argonne National Laboratory</a> for the <a href="/facts/Scalability/jh7JomPa">scalable</a> (<a href="/facts/Parallel_computing/nQzcpzQt">parallel</a>) solution of <a href="/facts/Scientific_computing/PnVD19hw">scientific applications</a> modeled by <a href="/facts/Partial_differential_equations/DyPsBlv7">partial differential equations</a>. It employs the <a href="/facts/Message_Passing_Interface/BEuBgDpm">Message Passing Interface</a> (MPI) standard for all message-passing communication. PETSc is the world’s most widely used parallel numerical software library for <a href="/facts/Partial_differential_equations/DyPsBlv7">partial differential equations</a> and <a href="/facts/Sparse_matrix/FFtN0XjR">sparse matrix</a> computations. PETSc received an R&D 100 Award in 2009. The PETSc Core Development Group won the SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering for 2015. </p><p>PETSc is intended for use in <a href="/facts/Scale_(computing)/jh7JomPa">large-scale</a> application projects, many ongoing computational science projects are built around the PETSc <a href="/facts/Library_(computer_science)/xRzL3P7q">libraries</a>. Its careful design allows advanced users to have detailed control over the solution process. PETSc includes a large suite of parallel <a href="/facts/Linear_algebra/8VaB4VWk">linear</a> and <a href="/facts/Nonlinearity/4aYItALC">nonlinear</a> <a href="/facts/System_of_linear_equations/fk9CFdgp">equation solvers</a> that are easily used in application codes written in <a href="/facts/C_(programming_language)/Ky2No763">C</a>, <a href="/facts/C%252B%252B/Et0F2qn9">C++</a>, <a href="/facts/Fortran/m1KqjcMU">Fortran</a> and now <a href="/facts/Python_(programming_language)/YbuGqofa">Python</a>. PETSc provides many of the mechanisms needed within parallel application code, such as simple parallel <a href="/facts/Matrix_(mathematics)/qa8FI4ko">matrix</a> and <a href="/facts/Vector_space/M1pxMLx2">vector</a> assembly routines that allow the overlap of <a href="/facts/Computer_networking/3w5RM99p">communication</a> and <a href="/facts/Computation/qLsELosq">computation</a>. In addition, PETSc includes support for parallel distributed <a href="/facts/Array_data_structure/BKGvF8AM">arrays</a> useful for <a href="/facts/Finite_difference/aY1txFhj">finite difference</a> methods. </p>