Benchmarks

Here are some simple benchmarks. Take them with a grain of salt since they run on virtual machines in the cloud to generate the documentation automatically.

First-derivative operators

Periodic domains

Let's set up some benchmark code.

using BenchmarkToolsusing LinearAlgebra, SparseArraysusing SummationByPartsOperatorsBLAS.set_num_threads(1) # make sure that BLAS is serial to be fairT = Float64xmin, xmax = T(0), T(1)D_SBP = periodic_derivative_operator(derivative_order=1, accuracy_order=2,                                     xmin=xmin, xmax=xmax, N=100)x = grid(D_SBP)D_sparse = sparse(D_SBP)u = randn(eltype(D_SBP), length(x)); du = similar(u);@show D_SBP * u  D_sparse * ufunction doit(D, text, du, u)  println(text)  sleep(0.1)  show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du, $D, $u))  println()end
doit (generic function with 1 method)

First, we benchmark the implementation from SummationByPartsOperators.jl.

doit(D_SBP, "D_SBP:", du, u)
D_SBP:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 998 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  16.216 ns36.457 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     16.779 ns               GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   16.876 ns ±  0.850 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

   ▄▅▅▇▂                                                    ▂
  ▇█████▇▆▇▇█▇▆▅▅▅▄▆▅▆▆▃▁▃▃▁▄▄▁▄▁▁▁▃▄▃▁▁▁▃▁▃▃▁▁▁▃▁▁▃▁▄▅▄▅▇█ █
  16.2 ns      Histogram: log(frequency) by time      22.4 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Next, we compare this to the runtime obtained using a sparse matrix representation of the derivative operator. Depending on the hardware etc., this can be an order of magnitude slower than the optimized implementation from SummationByPartsOperators.jl.

doit(D_sparse, "D_sparse:", du, u)
D_sparse:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 914 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  114.602 ns180.586 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     118.700 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   120.324 ns ±   4.768 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

         ▃▅█▆                                              
  ▁▂▃▃▅▇██████▇▇▆▄▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▂▃▂▂▂▂▁▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▂▂▁▁▁▁ ▃
  115 ns           Histogram: frequency by time          137 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

These results were obtained using the following versions.

using InteractiveUtilsversioninfo()using PkgPkg.status(["SummationByPartsOperators"],           mode=PKGMODE_MANIFEST)
Julia Version 1.10.12
Commit d93beab124c (2026-08-15 10:29 UTC)
Build Info:
  Official https://julialang.org/ release
Platform Info:
  OS: Linux (x86_64-linux-gnu)
  CPU: 4 × AMD EPYC 9V45 96-Core Processor
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-15.0.7 (ORCJIT, generic)
Threads: 2 default, 0 interactive, 1 GC (on 4 virtual cores)
Environment:
  JULIA_PKG_SERVER_REGISTRY_PREFERENCE = eager
Status `~/work/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/docs/Manifest.toml`
  [9f78cca6] SummationByPartsOperators v0.5.97 `~/work/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/SummationByPartsOperators.jl`

Bounded domains

We start again by setting up some benchmark code.

using BenchmarkToolsusing LinearAlgebra, SparseArraysusing SummationByPartsOperators, BandedMatricesBLAS.set_num_threads(1) # make sure that BLAS is serial to be fairT = Float64xmin, xmax = T(0), T(1)D_SBP = derivative_operator(MattssonNordström2004(), derivative_order=1,                            accuracy_order=6, xmin=xmin, xmax=xmax, N=10^3)D_sparse = sparse(D_SBP)D_banded = BandedMatrix(D_SBP)u = randn(eltype(D_SBP), size(D_SBP, 1)); du = similar(u);@show D_SBP * u  D_sparse * u  D_banded * ufunction doit(D, text, du, u)  println(text)  sleep(0.1)  show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du, $D, $u))  println()end
doit (generic function with 1 method)

First, we benchmark the implementation from SummationByPartsOperators.jl.

doit(D_SBP, "D_SBP:", du, u)
D_SBP:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 352 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  255.952 ns331.148 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     262.210 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   263.490 ns ±   6.099 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

     ▄▅▃▃▁   ▅█▆▅▄▁▁ ▁▁                                       
  ▁▃▆█████▇▆███████████▅▃▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▁ ▃
  256 ns           Histogram: frequency by time          283 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Again, we compare this to a representation of the derivative operator as a sparse matrix. No surprise - it is again much slower, as in periodic domains.

doit(D_sparse, "D_sparse:", du, u)
D_sparse:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 9 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  2.798 μs  4.447 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     2.859 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   2.877 μs ± 110.077 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

  ▁▅███▆▄▂▁                                          ▁   ▁ ▃
  █████████▇██▇█▇▆▆▅▆▅▃▃▃▁▁▄▃▄▁▁▁▃▄▁▃▁▃▁▁▁▃▁▁▁▁▁▃▁▃▃▇█████ █
  2.8 μs       Histogram: log(frequency) by time      3.48 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Finally, we compare it to a representation as a banded matrix. Disappointingly, this is still much slower than the optimized implementation from SummationByPartsOperators.jl.

doit(D_banded, "D_banded:", du, u)
D_banded:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 6 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  5.543 μs  9.931 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     5.680 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   5.732 μs ± 231.362 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

    ▄▇▇▇█▇▆▄▄▃▃▂▂▂▁▁▁                                ▁▁▁▁▁  ▃
  ▄▆█████████████████████▇▇▆▆▅▆▇▃▅▅▅▄▅▃▄▃▃▅▃▁▃▁▃▃▄▇████████ █
  5.54 μs      Histogram: log(frequency) by time      6.67 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

These results were obtained using the following versions.

using InteractiveUtilsversioninfo()using PkgPkg.status(["SummationByPartsOperators", "BandedMatrices"],           mode=PKGMODE_MANIFEST)
Julia Version 1.10.12
Commit d93beab124c (2026-08-15 10:29 UTC)
Build Info:
  Official https://julialang.org/ release
Platform Info:
  OS: Linux (x86_64-linux-gnu)
  CPU: 4 × AMD EPYC 9V45 96-Core Processor
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-15.0.7 (ORCJIT, generic)
Threads: 2 default, 0 interactive, 1 GC (on 4 virtual cores)
Environment:
  JULIA_PKG_SERVER_REGISTRY_PREFERENCE = eager
Status `~/work/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/docs/Manifest.toml`
  [aae01518] BandedMatrices v1.12.0
  [9f78cca6] SummationByPartsOperators v0.5.97 `~/work/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/SummationByPartsOperators.jl`

Dissipation operators

We follow the same structure as before. At first, we set up some benchmark code.

using BenchmarkToolsusing LinearAlgebra, SparseArraysusing SummationByPartsOperators, BandedMatricesBLAS.set_num_threads(1) # make sure that BLAS is serial to be fairT = Float64xmin, xmax = T(0), T(1)D_SBP = derivative_operator(MattssonNordström2004(), derivative_order=1,                            accuracy_order=6, xmin=xmin, xmax=xmax, N=10^3)Di_SBP  = dissipation_operator(MattssonSvärdNordström2004(), D_SBP)Di_sparse = sparse(Di_SBP)Di_banded = BandedMatrix(Di_SBP)Di_full   = Matrix(Di_SBP)u = randn(eltype(D_SBP), size(D_SBP, 1)); du = similar(u);@show Di_SBP * u  Di_sparse * u  Di_banded * u  Di_full * ufunction doit(D, text, du, u)  println(text)  sleep(0.1)  show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du, $D, $u))  println()end
doit (generic function with 1 method)

At first, let us benchmark the derivative and dissipation operators implemented in SummationByPartsOperators.jl.

doit(D_SBP, "D_SBP:", du, u)doit(Di_SBP, "Di_SBP:", du, u)
D_SBP:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 340 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  258.356 ns639.691 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     264.629 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   266.728 ns ±   8.647 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

     ▅▄▁▁▃▇▇                                                 
  ▁▃█████████▇▆▆▆▅▃▃▂▂▂▂▁▁▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▃▂▂▂▂▂▁▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ▃
  258 ns           Histogram: frequency by time          297 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
Di_SBP:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 200 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  402.355 ns700.695 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     410.360 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   413.962 ns ±  13.474 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

    ▅█▃▂▃▅▂                                                    
  ▁▇███████▆▃▄▃▃▄▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ▂
  402 ns           Histogram: frequency by time          468 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Next, we compare the results to sparse matrix representations. It will not come as a surprise that these are again much (around an order of magnitude) slower.

doit(Di_sparse, "Di_sparse:", du, u)doit(Di_banded, "Di_banded:", du, u)
Di_sparse:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 8 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  3.317 μs  7.469 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     3.371 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   3.406 μs ± 168.226 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

  ▄██▇▄▃▃▃▂▂▁▁▁                                      ▁     ▃
  █████████████████▇▇▆▇▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▇▄▆▄▆▅▅▅▅▅▄▄▁▄▄▄▁▁▆▆██████▇▆ █
  3.32 μs      Histogram: log(frequency) by time      4.12 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
Di_banded:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 7 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  4.464 μs  9.119 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     4.560 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   4.615 μs ± 222.981 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

   ▃▆▇█▇▅▄▄▃▃▂▂▂▁▁▁                             ▁▁          ▂
  ▆█████████████████████▇▇▆▆▆▆▅▄▆▅▃▅▅▄▅▁▄▁▁▁▅▇██████▇▆▇▅▆▆▆ █
  4.46 μs      Histogram: log(frequency) by time      5.54 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Finally, let's benchmark the same computation if a full (dense) matrix is used to represent the derivative operator. This is obviously a bad idea but 🤷

doit(Di_full, "Di_full:", du, u)
Di_full:
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 1 evaluation per sample.
 Range (minmax):  64.886 μs147.510 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     68.783 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   69.633 μs ±   2.927 μs   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

               ▂▆██▆▅▃▃▂▂▂▂▁                 ▁▃▃▃▂▁          ▂
  ▄▆▆▆▆▅▁▅▄▄▄▃▄████████████████▇▇▇▇▇▆▆▆▆▇▇▆▆▅████████▇▆▆▅▆▆▅ █
  64.9 μs       Histogram: log(frequency) by time      78.9 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

These results were obtained using the following versions.

using InteractiveUtilsversioninfo()using PkgPkg.status(["SummationByPartsOperators", "BandedMatrices"],           mode=PKGMODE_MANIFEST)
Julia Version 1.10.12
Commit d93beab124c (2026-08-15 10:29 UTC)
Build Info:
  Official https://julialang.org/ release
Platform Info:
  OS: Linux (x86_64-linux-gnu)
  CPU: 4 × AMD EPYC 9V45 96-Core Processor
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-15.0.7 (ORCJIT, generic)
Threads: 2 default, 0 interactive, 1 GC (on 4 virtual cores)
Environment:
  JULIA_PKG_SERVER_REGISTRY_PREFERENCE = eager
Status `~/work/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/docs/Manifest.toml`
  [aae01518] BandedMatrices v1.12.0
  [9f78cca6] SummationByPartsOperators v0.5.97 `~/work/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/SummationByPartsOperators.jl`

Structure-of-Arrays (SoA) and Array-of-Structures (AoS)

SummationByPartsOperators.jl tries to provide efficient support of

To demonstrate this, let us set up some benchmark code.

using BenchmarkToolsusing StaticArrays, StructArraysusing LinearAlgebra, SparseArraysusing SummationByPartsOperatorsBLAS.set_num_threads(1) # make sure that BLAS is serial to be fairstruct Vec5{T} <: FieldVector{5,T}  x1::T  x2::T  x3::T  x4::T  x5::Tend# Apply `mul!` to each component of a plain array of structures one after anotherfunction mul_aos!(du, D, u, args...)  for i in 1:size(du, 1)    mul!(view(du, i, :), D, view(u, i, :), args...)  endendT = Float64xmin, xmax = T(0), T(1)D_SBP = derivative_operator(MattssonNordström2004(), derivative_order=1,                            accuracy_order=4, xmin=xmin, xmax=xmax, N=101)D_sparse = sparse(D_SBP)D_full   = Matrix(D_SBP)
101×101 Matrix{Float64}:
 -141.176    173.529   -23.5294   …    0.0         0.0       0.0
  -50.0        0.0      50.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    9.30233  -68.6047    0.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    3.06122    0.0     -60.2041        0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       8.33333       0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0      …    0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    ⋮                             ⋱                          ⋮
    0.0        0.0       0.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0           0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0      …    0.0         0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0          -8.33333     0.0       0.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0          60.2041      0.0      -3.06122
    0.0        0.0       0.0           0.0        68.6047   -9.30233
    0.0        0.0       0.0         -50.0         0.0      50.0
    0.0        0.0       0.0      …   23.5294   -173.529   141.176

At first, we benchmark the application of the operators implemented in SummationByPartsOperators.jl and their representations as sparse and dense matrices in the scalar case. As before, the sparse matrix representation is around an order of magnitude slower and the dense matrix representation is far off.

println("Scalar case")u = randn(T, size(D_SBP, 1)); du = similar(u)println("D_SBP")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du, $D_SBP, $u))println("\nD_sparse")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du, $D_sparse, $u))println("\nD_full")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du, $D_full, $u))
Scalar case
D_SBP
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 995 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  28.938 ns401.221 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     29.582 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   31.237 ns ±  12.532 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

  █▁   ▂▁                                                   ▁
  ██▇▇███▇▇▆▆▆▅▆▄▄▄▅▄▄▄▄▅▅▄▁▄▅▅▅▁▄▄▄▄▁▄▃▁▄▄▃▄▁▁▄▄▄▃▅▄▄▄▄▅▃▄ █
  28.9 ns       Histogram: log(frequency) by time      72.1 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
D_sparse
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 560 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  202.320 ns813.159 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     208.650 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   209.825 ns ±   8.904 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

              ▄█                                               
  ▁▃▇██▅▅▄▄▄▄▇██▅▅▄▃▃▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▃▂▂▂▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ▂
  202 ns           Histogram: frequency by time          231 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
D_full
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 33 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  932.303 ns 3.084 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     954.152 ns               GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   963.287 ns ± 46.612 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

    ▁▅▇██▄▃▃▂▂▁▁▁▁                                    ▁▁▁▁  ▂
  ▇█████████████████████▆▇▆▆▆▆▆▆▅▄▆▅▅▄▃▄▃▄▃▃▁▁▃▅▁▃▁▃▅██████ █
  932 ns        Histogram: log(frequency) by time      1.13 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Next, we use a plain array of structures (AoS) in the form of a two-dimensional array and our custom mul_aos! implementation that loops over each component, using mul! on views. Here, the differences between the timings are less pronounced.

println("Plain Array of Structures")u_aos_plain = randn(T, 5, size(D_SBP, 1)); du_aos_plain = similar(u_aos_plain)println("D_SBP")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul_aos!($du_aos_plain, $D_SBP, $u_aos_plain))println("\nD_sparse")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul_aos!($du_aos_plain, $D_sparse, $u_aos_plain))println("\nD_full")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul_aos!($du_aos_plain, $D_full, $u_aos_plain))
Plain Array of Structures
D_SBP
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 120 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  752.950 ns 3.534 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     765.392 ns               GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   773.691 ns ± 36.955 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

    ▁██▇▆▂▁                                                   
  ▂▄███████▇▅▄▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▁▂▂▂▂▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ▂
  753 ns          Histogram: frequency by time          858 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
D_sparse
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 10 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  1.247 μs  7.254 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     1.277 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   1.298 μs ± 106.903 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

  ▄▇█▅▄▄▃▂▂▂▁▁▁                                            ▂
  ████████████████▆▇▇▇▅▅▅▆▆▁▃▁▄▃▄▄▄▁▄▄▃▁▄▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▃▃▃▃▃▃▄▅▇▇ █
  1.25 μs      Histogram: log(frequency) by time      1.83 μs <

 Memory estimate: 240 bytes, allocs estimate: 5.
D_full
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 7 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  4.771 μs  9.486 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     4.975 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   5.027 μs ± 213.586 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

     ▁▃▅▆▇▇██▇▆▅▄▃▃▂▁▁▁                           ▁▁▁▁ ▁    ▃
  ▆▄▆████████████████████▇▇██▇▇▇▇▆▇▅▇▆▆▅▆▅▅▇▅▄▆▆▇▇████████▆ █
  4.77 μs      Histogram: log(frequency) by time      5.87 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Now, we use an array of structures (AoS) based on reinterpret and standard mul!. This is much more efficient for the implementation in SummationByPartsOperators.jl. In Julia v1.6, this is also more efficient for sparse matrices but less efficient for dense matrices (compared to the plain AoS approach with mul_aos! above).

println("Array of Structures (reinterpreted array)")u_aos_r = reinterpret(reshape, Vec5{T}, u_aos_plain); du_aos_r = similar(u_aos_r)@show D_SBP * u_aos_r  D_sparse * u_aos_r  D_full * u_aos_rmul!(du_aos_r, D_SBP, u_aos_r)@show reinterpret(reshape, T, du_aos_r)  du_aos_plainprintln("D_SBP")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_aos_r, $D_SBP, $u_aos_r))println("\nD_sparse")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_aos_r, $D_sparse, $u_aos_r))println("\nD_full")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_aos_r, $D_full, $u_aos_r))
Array of Structures (reinterpreted array)
D_SBP * u_aos_r ≈ D_sparse * u_aos_r ≈ D_full * u_aos_r = true
reinterpret(reshape, T, du_aos_r) ≈ du_aos_plain = true
D_SBP
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 944 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):   98.707 ns156.006 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     100.638 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   101.981 ns ±   4.519 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

   ▅█▄                                                       
  ▃████▇▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▂▂▂▂▂▂ ▃
  98.7 ns          Histogram: frequency by time          128 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
D_sparse
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 202 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  380.965 ns 11.249 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 93.88%
 Time  (median):     390.832 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   396.308 ns ± 111.196 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.27% ±  0.94%

       ▂▅█▇▃▃▂                                                 
  ▁▃▅▇▇███████▇▅▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▁▁▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ▂
  381 ns           Histogram: frequency by time          444 ns <

 Memory estimate: 32 bytes, allocs estimate: 1.
D_full
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 5 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  6.854 μs 11.693 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     7.027 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   7.076 μs ± 267.982 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

  ▂▃▄▅▆▇█▄▃▂▁▁                                      ▁▁▁    ▂
  ██████████████████▇▆▆▅▅▅▅▅▁▃▁▅▅▆▅▄▅▅▃▁▁▁▄▅▁▅▅▆▆▇████████ █
  6.85 μs      Histogram: log(frequency) by time      8.27 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Next, we still use an array of structures (AoS), but copy the data into a plain Array instead of using the reinterpreted versions. There is no significant difference to the previous version in this case.

println("Array of Structures")u_aos = Array(u_aos_r); du_aos = similar(u_aos)@show D_SBP * u_aos  D_sparse * u_aos  D_full * u_aosmul!(du_aos, D_SBP, u_aos)@show du_aos  du_aos_rprintln("D_SBP")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_aos, $D_SBP, $u_aos))println("\nD_sparse")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_aos, $D_sparse, $u_aos))println("\nD_full")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_aos, $D_full, $u_aos))
Array of Structures
D_SBP * u_aos ≈ D_sparse * u_aos ≈ D_full * u_aos = true
du_aos ≈ du_aos_r = true
D_SBP
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 962 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  85.012 ns155.720 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     86.886 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   87.479 ns ±   2.370 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

     ▂▅███▆▅▇▆▅▁                                             
  ▁▃▇███████████▆▅▄▃▂▂▂▂▂▁▂▁▂▁▁▁▁▁▂▂▂▂▂▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ▃
  85 ns           Histogram: frequency by time         95.6 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
D_sparse
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 205 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  372.800 ns705.346 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     381.493 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   386.956 ns ±  18.595 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

   ▁▅█▄                                                        
  ▃████▅▅▄▃▃▂▂▃▃▃▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▂▂▁▂▂▁▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▂▂▂▂▂ ▃
  373 ns           Histogram: frequency by time          489 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
D_full
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 5 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  6.990 μs 16.603 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     7.129 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   7.185 μs ± 279.954 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

  ▂▅▆▆▇██▆▄▃▂▁▁▁▁                                     ▁▁▁▁  ▃
  ██████████████████▇▇█▇▆▇▆▇▆▆▆▅▅▅▅▅▄▅▄▅▅▅▄▁▅▄▄▁▅▇▆████████ █
  6.99 μs      Histogram: log(frequency) by time      8.31 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

Finally, let's look at a structure of arrays (SoA). Interestingly, this is slower than the array of structures we used above. On Julia v1.6, the sparse matrix representation performs particularly bad in this case.

println("Structure of Arrays")u_soa = StructArray(u_aos); du_soa = similar(u_soa)@show D_SBP * u_soa  D_sparse * u_soa  D_full * u_soamul!(du_soa, D_SBP, u_soa)@show du_soa  du_aosprintln("D_SBP")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_soa, $D_SBP, $u_soa))println("\nD_sparse")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_soa, $D_sparse, $u_soa))println("\nD_full")show(stdout, MIME"text/plain"(), @benchmark mul!($du_soa, $D_full, $u_soa))
Structure of Arrays
D_SBP * u_soa ≈ D_sparse * u_soa ≈ D_full * u_soa = true
du_soa ≈ du_aos = true
D_SBP
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 839 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  146.799 ns191.502 ns   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     150.570 ns                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   151.773 ns ±   3.664 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

         ▅▇▇█▄▄▃▁                                              
  ▁▁▂▃▅▆▇████████▇▄▃▃▃▂▂▂▃▃▃▃▃▄▃▃▃▃▃▃▂▂▂▂▁▂▂▁▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ▃
  147 ns           Histogram: frequency by time          165 ns <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
D_sparse
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 1 evaluation per sample.
 Range (minmax):  29.424 μs64.316 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     30.666 μs               GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   31.105 μs ±  1.632 μs   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

      ▁▅▆█▆▄                                               
  ▁▂▃▆████████▆▆▅▄▄▃▃▃▂▂▂▁▁▁▂▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ▃
  29.4 μs         Histogram: frequency by time          37 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.
D_full
BenchmarkTools.Trial: 10000 samples with 8 evaluations per sample.
 Range (minmax):  3.305 μs 20.457 μs   GC (min … max): 0.00% … 0.00%
 Time  (median):     3.479 μs                GC (median):    0.00%
 Time  (mean ± σ):   3.502 μs ± 258.358 ns   GC (mean ± σ):  0.00% ± 0.00%

           ▄▇                                              
  ▂▂▂▃▅▆▆▇███▇▄▃▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▁▁▂▂▂▁▂▂▁▁▁▁▁▂▁▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂ ▃
  3.3 μs          Histogram: frequency by time        4.22 μs <

 Memory estimate: 0 bytes, allocs estimate: 0.

These results were obtained using the following versions.

using InteractiveUtilsversioninfo()using PkgPkg.status(["SummationByPartsOperators", "StaticArrays", "StructArrays"],           mode=PKGMODE_MANIFEST)
Julia Version 1.10.12
Commit d93beab124c (2026-08-15 10:29 UTC)
Build Info:
  Official https://julialang.org/ release
Platform Info:
  OS: Linux (x86_64-linux-gnu)
  CPU: 4 × AMD EPYC 9V45 96-Core Processor
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-15.0.7 (ORCJIT, generic)
Threads: 2 default, 0 interactive, 1 GC (on 4 virtual cores)
Environment:
  JULIA_PKG_SERVER_REGISTRY_PREFERENCE = eager
Status `~/work/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/docs/Manifest.toml`
  [90137ffa] StaticArrays v1.9.20
  [09ab397b] StructArrays v0.7.3
  [9f78cca6] SummationByPartsOperators v0.5.97 `~/work/SummationByPartsOperators.jl/SummationByPartsOperators.jl`