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BLIS (software)

refactoring of GotoBLAS2

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ65087866 ↗
Source-derived summary

In scientific computing, BLIS (BLAS-like Library Instantiation Software)

is an open-source framework for implementing a superset of BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) functionality for specific processor types that was awarded the J. H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software in 2023. It exposes that functionality through two traditional Application Programming Interfaces (APIs): the BLAS interface and the CBLAS interface. BLIS also includes two APIs native to the framework: a typed (BLAS-like) API and an object API. These native interfaces provide access to BLAS-like functionality that is not supported by, but closely related to, operations found in the BLAS (and CBLAS).

The framework is developed and supported by the Science of High-Performance Computing (SHPC) group of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin and the Matthews Research Group at Southern Methodist University.

BLIS yields high performance on many current CPU microarchitectures in both single-threaded and multithreaded modes of execution. BLIS also offers competitive performance for some cases of matrix multiplication in which one or more matrix operands are unusually skinny and/or small.

The framework achieves high performance by employing specialized kernels (typically written in GNU extended inline assembly syntax) along with cache and register blocking through matrix operands. BLIS also works on processors for which custom kernels have not yet been written; in those cases, the framework relies upon portable kernel implementations that perform at a lower rate of computation.

BLIS is sometimes described as a refactoring of GotoBLAS2, which was created by Kazushige Goto at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.

Editorial summary

“BLIS (software)” enters the record as refactoring of GotoBLAS2. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what BLIS, software and refactoring can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2023—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around BLIS, software and refactoring.
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“BLIS (software)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, BLIS, software and refactoring provides the most credible route into that argument.

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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q65087866. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “BLIS (software)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.