MKL to MKLDNN to DNNL to oneDNN
oneDNN is the latest name of MKLDNN library. It has been rebranded by Intel. Hence, oneDNN, MKLDNN and DNNL are all the same software library. Initially, MKLDNN was library over MKL but since the introduction of DNNL, MKL is separate.
MKLDNN was renamed to DNNL in January 2020 and DNNL was renamed to OneDNN in May 2020.
Key terminologies:
- oneDNN: OneAPI Deep Neural Network
- MKLDNN: MKL Deep Neural Network
- DNNL: Deep Neural Network Library
- MKL: Math Kernel Library
Why MKL to MKLDNN?
MKL is Intel's BLAS library whereas MKLDNN is a Software library that internally uses MKL as a core component and builds over the available optimizations to bring in further optimization to Machine Learning operation.
This project of MKLDNN was started in 2015.
Why MKLDNN to DNNL?
MKLDNN was renamed to DNNL as the purpose of the library was extended to cover a wide variety of Deep Neural Network applications and MKL (Intel's BLAS library) was not longer an integral part of the library.
Initially, the library was build over MKL but as the project grew, it was made optional.
Why DNNL to oneDNN?
DNNL was renamed to oneDNN as the user interface went through a major change to cope up with upcoming libraries and Machine Learning standards oneAPI.
oneAPI is an unified programming model and is a standard that is expected to be followed by everyone to make every software easily pluggable.
This captures the evolution of MKL to MKLDNN to DNNL to oneDNN.