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Bitonic Sort

Bitonic sort is a parallel sorting algorithm that performs O(n log 2 n) comparisons. It is suitable for parallel and hardware implementations because the sequence of comparisons does not depend on the data. To perform bitonic sort: 1. The input is transformed into a bitonic sequence, which is first increasing then decreasing. 2. The bitonic sequence is then divided into smaller bitonic sequences until single elements remain, sorting the data.

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Prateek Gahlan
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108 views

Bitonic Sort

Bitonic sort is a parallel sorting algorithm that performs O(n log 2 n) comparisons. It is suitable for parallel and hardware implementations because the sequence of comparisons does not depend on the data. To perform bitonic sort: 1. The input is transformed into a bitonic sequence, which is first increasing then decreasing. 2. The bitonic sequence is then divided into smaller bitonic sequences until single elements remain, sorting the data.

Uploaded by

Prateek Gahlan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Bitonic Sort is a classic parallel algorithm

for sorting.
Bitonic sort does O(n Log 2n) comparisons.
The number of comparisons done by Bitonic sort are more than popular sorting algorithms like Merge
Sort [ does O(nLogn) comparisons], but Bitonice sort is better for parallel implementation because we
always compare elements in predefined sequence and the sequence of comparison doesnt depend on
data. Therefore it is suitable for implementation in hardware and parallel processor array.
To understand Bitonic Sort, we must first understand what is Bitonic Sequence and how to make a given
sequence Bitonic.
Bitonic Sequence
A sequence is called Bitonic if it is first increasing, then decreasing. In other words, an array arr[0..n-i] is
Bitonic if there exists an index i where 0<=i<=n-1 such that

x0 <= x1 ..<= xi and xi >= xi+1.. >= xn-1


1. A sequence, sorted in increasing order is considered Bitonic with the decreasing part as empty. Similarly,
decreasing order sequence is considered Bitonic with the increasing part as empty.
2. A rotation of Bitonic Sequence is also bitonic.
How to form a Bitonic Sequence from a random input?
We start by forming 4-element bitonic sequences from consecutive 2-element sequence. Consider 4-element
in sequence x0, x1, x2, x3. We sort x0 and x1 in ascending order and x2 and x3 in descending order. We then
concatenate the two pairs to form a 4 element bitonic sequence.
Next, we take two 4 element bitonic sequences, sorting one in ascending order, the other in descending order
(using the Bitonic Sort which we will discuss below), and so on, until we obtain the bitonic sequence.
Example:
Convert the following sequence to bitonic sequence: 3, 7, 4, 8, 6, 2, 1, 5
Step 1: Consider each 2-consecutive elements as bitonic sequence and apply bitonic sort on each 2- pair
elements. In next step, take two 4 element bitonic sequences and so on.

Note: x0 and x1 are sorted in ascending order and x2 and x3 in descending order and so on
Step 2: Two 4 element bitonic sequences : A(3,7,8,4) and B(2,6,5,1) with comparator length as 2
After this step, well get Bitonic sequence of length 8.

3, 4, 7, 8, 6, 5, 2, 1

Bitonic Sorting
It mainly involves two steps.
1. Forming a bitonic sequence (discussed above in detail). After this step we reach the fourth stage in below
diagram, i.e., the array becomes {3, 4, 7, 8, 6, 5, 2, 1}
2. Creating one sorted sequence from bitonic sequence : After first step, first half is sorted in increasing
order and second half in decreasing order.
We compare first element of first half with first element of second half, then second element of first half
with second element of second and so on. We exchange elements if an element of first half is smaller.
After above compare and exchange steps, we get two bitonic sequences in array. See fifth stage in below
diagram. In the fifth stage, we have {3, 4, 2, 1, 6, 5, 7, 8}. If we take a closer look at the elements, we can
notice that there are two bitonic sequences of length n/2 such that all elements in first bitnic sequence {3,
4, 2, 1} are smaller than all elements of second bitonic sequence {6, 5, 7, 8}.
We repeat the same process within two bitonic sequences and we get four bitonic sequences of length
n/4 such that all elements of leftmost bitonic sequence are smaller and all elements of rightmost. See
sixth stage in below diagram, arrays is {2, 1, 3, 4, 6, 5, 7, 8}.
If we repeat this process one more time we get 8 bitonic sequences of size n/8 which is 1. Since all these
bitonic sequence are sorted and every bitonic sequence has one element, we get the sorted array.

Analysis of Bitonic Sort


To form a sorted sequence of length n from two sorted sequences of length n/2, log(n) comparisons are
required (for example: log(8) = 3 when sequence size. Therefore, The number of comparisons T(n) of the
entire sorting is given by:
T(n) = log(n) + T(n/2)
The solution of this recurrence equation is
T(n) = log(n) + log(n)-1 + log(n)-2 + + 1 = log(n) (log(n)+1) / 2
As, each stage of the sorting network consists of n/2 comparators. Therefore total (n log 2n) comparators.

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