Layout is a core concept in Triton for representing and optimizing distribution mappings from source problems to the target hardware compute and memory hierarchy. In this blog post I will talk about linear layout in Triton, the new unifying mechanism over existing bespoke layouts for different purposes. The aim is to provide motivation and an intuitive understanding of linear layout; I will rely on examples and illustrations instead of theories and proofs.
The initial blog post in this series captured my overall take on the evolution trends of compilers and IRs. It also touched on LLVM IR, SPIR-V, and MLIR, explaining the problems they are addressing and design focuses thereof. Today I will expand on MLIR and talk about its dialect hierarchy for machine learning (ML) compilers systematically.
