Warp-Level Programming#

A warp is CUDA’s fundamental scheduling unit: 32 threads that execute in lockstep on the same SM. Because all 32 threads share an instruction pointer, they can exchange data directly through warp shuffle instructions — register-to-register transfers that cost roughly one cycle and require no shared memory, no barriers, and no synchronization.

cuda-oxide exposes the full warp intrinsic set through cuda_device::warp. This chapter covers shuffle, vote, and the patterns they unlock: warp reductions, broadcasts, scans, and ballot-based filtering.

See also

CUDA Programming Guide — Warp Shuffle Functions for PTX encoding details and the full set of width variants.

Lane and warp identity#

Every thread in a block has a lane ID (0–31) within its warp:

use cuda_device::warp;

let lane = warp::lane_id();     // 0..31, hardware register %laneid
let warp = warp::warp_id();     // threadIdx.x / 32

warp_id() is derived from threadIdx.x / 32. For multi-dimensional blocks, this only accounts for the x dimension — which is usually fine, since most kernels that care about lane identity use 1D blocks.

Shuffle: register-to-register data exchange#

The four shuffle variants let a thread read another thread’s register without going through memory:

Function

What it does

Source lane

shuffle(val, src)

Read from a specific lane

src

shuffle_xor(val, mask)

Read from lane_id ^ mask

lane_id ^ mask

shuffle_down(val, delta)

Read from lane_id + delta

lane_id + delta

shuffle_up(val, delta)

Read from lane_id - delta

lane_id - delta

Each variant exists for both u32 and f32:

let partner_val = warp::shuffle_xor_f32(my_val, 1);
let broadcast   = warp::shuffle_f32(my_val, 0);     // lane 0's value to all
let neighbor    = warp::shuffle_down_f32(my_val, 1); // next lane's value

All shuffles are warp-synchronous — they implicitly synchronize the warp. No sync_threads() is needed, and in fact calling sync_threads() inside a shuffle pattern would be both unnecessary and wasteful.

Warp reduction#

The most common shuffle pattern is a butterfly reduction: in ⌈log₂(32)⌉ = 5 steps, every lane accumulates the sum (or min, max, etc.) of all 32 values. No shared memory, no barriers, five shuffle steps.

../_images/warp-shuffle-reduction.svg

Butterfly reduction using shuffle_xor. At each step, lanes exchange values with their XOR partner and add. After 5 steps (masks 16, 8, 4, 2, 1), lane 0 holds the sum of all 32 values.#

use cuda_device::warp;

fn warp_reduce_sum(mut val: f32) -> f32 {
    val += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(val, 16);
    val += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(val, 8);
    val += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(val, 4);
    val += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(val, 2);
    val += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(val, 1);
    val
}

After the reduction, all 32 lanes hold the sum (because XOR is symmetric — both partners accumulate). If you only need the result in lane 0, you can use shuffle_down instead:

fn warp_reduce_sum_lane0(mut val: f32) -> f32 {
    val += warp::shuffle_down_f32(val, 16);
    val += warp::shuffle_down_f32(val, 8);
    val += warp::shuffle_down_f32(val, 4);
    val += warp::shuffle_down_f32(val, 2);
    val += warp::shuffle_down_f32(val, 1);
    val
}

With shuffle_down, only lane 0 holds the correct result — the others hold partial sums. This is fine when only lane 0 writes the output.

Tip

Need a block-wide reduction? Reduce within each warp using shuffles, write the 32 per-warp results to shared memory, sync_threads(), then reduce the warp-level results with one final warp. This hybrid approach is faster than a pure shared memory tree because it eliminates 5 levels of barriers.

Integers on Ampere: one instruction instead of ten#

Every reduction above – the hand-written butterflies, and the generic cooperative_groups::warp_reduce – costs five shuffles plus five combines. For integer reductions on sm_80 and newer there is a single hardware instruction, redux.sync, exposed one function per operation:

function

reduces

warp::redux_sync_add(mask, v)

wrapping sum, u32

warp::redux_sync_min_u32 / _min_i32

minimum

warp::redux_sync_max_u32 / _max_i32

maximum

warp::redux_sync_and / _or / _xor

bitwise

 
use cuda_device::warp;

const FULL_MASK: u32 = 0xffff_ffff;

// The whole reduction. One instruction, every lane holds the result.
let total = warp::redux_sync_add(FULL_MASK, my_value);

Measured on an A10G (sm_86), 1M threads each performing 64 full-warp u32 sum reductions: the butterfly form takes 159.4 µs per launch, the redux.sync form 33.6 µs – 4.74x, with bit-identical results. Wrapping u32 addition is associative modulo 2³² and min/max/and/or/xor are exact, so reduction order cannot change the answer.

That figure is the primitive measured in isolation: the probe kernel does almost nothing but reduce. A kernel that reduces once at the end of a memory-bound pass will see very little. Reach for this where reductions sit in an inner loop.

Three constraints:

  • Integers only. There is no f32/f64 form before sm_100, so float reductions keep the butterfly.

  • A full, converged warp. All 32 lanes must be live and must reach the same call with the same mask – the same contract the shuffle reductions already require. Sub-warp tiles and short tail warps keep the shuffle path (see reduce_sum_f32_partial and friends for the tail case).

  • It will not assemble below sm_80. Gate the call the way the redux_sum example does, on ctx.compute_capability(), or restrict the build to Ampere and newer.

warp_reduce does not select this form for you today; making it do so automatically needs a way for device code to know its target architecture, which is the open question in #811.

Broadcast#

Broadcasting lane 0’s value to all lanes is a single shuffle:

let leader_val = warp::shuffle_f32(my_val, 0);

Any lane can be the source. This replaces the shared-memory pattern of “lane 0 writes to shared, sync, all lanes read” — one instruction instead of three operations.

Inclusive prefix sum (scan)#

An inclusive scan computes a running total: lane i holds the sum of values from lanes 0 through i. The pattern uses shuffle_up:

fn warp_inclusive_scan(mut val: f32) -> f32 {
    let mut offset = 1u32;
    while offset < 32 {
        let n = warp::shuffle_up_f32(val, offset);
        if warp::lane_id() >= offset {
            val += n;
        }
        offset *= 2;
    }
    val
}

After 5 steps, each lane holds the prefix sum up to and including its own value. This is the building block for stream compaction, histogram building, and parallel scan algorithms.

Vote: warp-wide predicates#

Vote operations let the warp collectively evaluate a boolean condition:

Function

Returns

warp::all(pred)

true if every active lane’s pred is true

warp::any(pred)

true if any active lane’s pred is true

warp::ballot(pred)

A u32 bitmask — bit i is set if lane i’s pred is true

warp::popc(pred)

Population count: how many active lanes have pred == true

Filtering with ballot#

A common pattern is to compact an array, keeping only elements that pass a predicate. ballot + popc gives you the count and the per-lane write offset:

use cuda_device::{kernel, thread, warp, DisjointSlice};

#[kernel]
pub fn compact_positive(
    input: &[f32],
    mut output: DisjointSlice<f32>,
    mut count: DisjointSlice<u32>,
) {
    let idx = thread::index_1d();
    let val = input[idx.get()];
    let is_positive = val > 0.0;

    let mask = warp::ballot(is_positive);
    let lane = warp::lane_id();

    // Count bits below this lane to get the write position
    let offset = (mask & ((1u32 << lane) - 1)).count_ones();

    if is_positive {
        unsafe {
            *output.get_unchecked_mut(offset as usize) = val;
        }
    }

    // Lane 0 records total count for this warp
    if lane == 0 {
        unsafe {
            *count.get_unchecked_mut(warp::warp_id() as usize) = mask.count_ones();
        }
    }
}

The ballot mask encodes the entire warp’s predicate result in one register. No communication, no shared memory — the hardware computes it in a single cycle.

When to use warp primitives vs. shared memory#

Task

Warp shuffle

Shared memory

Reduce 32 values

5 shuffles, ~5 cycles

5 loads + 5 syncs, ~50 cycles

Reduce 256 values

Shuffle + 1 sync + shuffle

Tree reduction, ~10 syncs

Stencil (neighbor access)

shuffle_up/shuffle_down

Good for 2D stencils

Data visible to other warps

Not possible

Required

Random access patterns

Not supported

Index freely

Persists across warp

Not applicable

Persists for block lifetime

The rule of thumb: if the data fits in a single warp (32 elements) and the access pattern is regular, shuffle is faster. If you need cross-warp communication, larger data sets, or random access, shared memory is the tool.

A complete example: warp-level dot product#

Putting shuffles and votes together, here is a kernel that computes the dot product of two vectors using warp reduction:

use cuda_device::{kernel, thread, warp, DisjointSlice};

#[kernel]
pub fn warp_dot_product(
    a: &[f32],
    b: &[f32],
    n: u32,
    mut result: DisjointSlice<f32>,
) {
    let idx = thread::index_1d();

    // Each thread computes one element of the pointwise product
    let product = if idx.get() < n as usize {
        a[idx.get()] * b[idx.get()]
    } else {
        0.0f32
    };

    // Warp-level reduction
    let mut sum = product;
    sum += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(sum, 16);
    sum += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(sum, 8);
    sum += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(sum, 4);
    sum += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(sum, 2);
    sum += warp::shuffle_xor_f32(sum, 1);

    // Lane 0 of each warp writes its partial sum
    if warp::lane_id() == 0 {
        unsafe {
            *result.get_unchecked_mut(warp::warp_id() as usize) = sum;
        }
    }
}

For a full dot product, launch a second pass that reduces the per-warp results — either with another warp kernel or with atomics. The first pass eliminates the vast majority of the work using only register shuffles.

See also