fftMPI website - fftMPI Documentation - fftMPI API

Manual for the fftMPI library

22 Dec 2020 version

The fftMPI library is designed to perform parallel 2d or 3d complex-to-complex Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) efficiently on distributed-memory machines using MPI (message passing interface library) to move data between processors.



The fftMPI library was developed at Sandia National Laboratories, a US Department of Energy facility, with funding from the DOE. It is an open-source code, distributed freely under the terms of the BSD Public License (BSD). See the LICENSE file in the distribution.


The primary developer of the fftMPI library is Steve Plimpton at Sandia National Laboratories, who can be contacted at sjplimp at sandia.gov. Additional collaborators are listed on the fftMPI website.

Additional info is available at these links:

IMPORTANT NOTE: the GitHub site will not be stood up until ~Oct 2018.


The fftMPI library replaces the older Parallel FFT Package, which was developed around 1997 for the LAMMPS molecular dynamics code. Both fftMPI and the older package are available from this download site.

My thanks to Bruce Hendrickson and Sue Minkoff at Sandia for useful discussions about parallel FFT strategies when I was creating the original Parallel FFT Package. Thanks also to the FFTW authors for the idea of using "plans" as an object-oriented tool for hiding data remapping and FFT details from the user.