HYBRID TECHNIQUE FOR PERFORMING A CMOD OPERATION IN A SPARSE SYMMETRIC DIRECT MATRIX SOLVER

A hybrid system for efficiently performing a cmod operation in solving a system of linear algebraic equations involving a sparse coefficient matrix. The system operates by identifying supernodes in the sparse matrix, wherein each supernode comprises a set of contiguous columns having a substantially similar pattern of non-zero elements. In solving the equation, the system performs a column modification (CMOD) operation between a source supernode and a destination supernode. As part of this CMOD operation, the system determines dimensions of the source supernode and the destination supernode. If a result of a function on the dimensions is lower than a threshold value, the system performs the CMOD operation between the source supernode and the destination supernode using a kernel that is written in an architecture-independent high-level language. If the result of the function on the dimensions is greater than the threshold value, the system performs the CMOD operation using a kernel that is written in an architecture-specific assembly code that runs efficiently on a specific computer architecture.