Fast evaluation of a time-domain non-linear cochlear model on GPUs

We present a parallel algorithm that solves a time-domain non-linear mathematical model of the cochlea. The previously known serial solution of the cochlear model is based on LU decomposition in the longitudinal dimension and is iterative in the time dimension. These two characteristics of the serial solution limit parallelism and prevent efficient computations on a massively parallel processor. We introduce a novel parallel algorithm that successfully overcomes the challenges posed by the cochlear model. We present performance results of a parallel implementation of the algorithm that shortens the computation time by a typical factor of 160–180, which makes the proposed algorithm of practical value for applications such as clinical audiological diagnosis.