Introducing Intel® Threading Building Blocks

Intel® Threading Building Blocks (Intel® TBB) is a library that supports scalable parallel programming using standard ISO C++ code. It does not require special languages or compilers. It is designed to promote scalable data parallel programming. Additionally, it fully supports nested parallelism, so you can build larger parallel components from smaller parallel components. To use the library, you specify tasks, not threads, and let the library map tasks onto threads in an efficient manner.

Many of the library interfaces employ generic programming, in which interfaces are defined by requirements on types and not specific types. The C++ Standard Template Library (STL) is an example of generic programming. Generic programming enables Intel® TBB to be flexible yet efficient. The generic interfaces enable you to customize components to your specific needs.

The net result is that Intel® TBB enables you to specify parallelism far more conveniently than using raw threads, and at the same time can improve performance.

Optimization Notice

Intel's compilers may or may not optimize to the same degree for non-Intel microprocessors for optimizations that are not unique to Intel microprocessors. These optimizations include SSE2, SSE3, and SSSE3 instruction sets and other optimizations. Intel does not guarantee the availability, functionality, or effectiveness of any optimization on microprocessors not manufactured by Intel. Microprocessor-dependent optimizations in this product are intended for use with Intel microprocessors. Certain optimizations not specific to Intel microarchitecture are reserved for Intel microprocessors. Please refer to the applicable product User and Reference Guides for more information regarding the specific instruction sets covered by this notice.

Notice revision #20110804