# Introduction

oneAPI Threading Building Blocks (oneTBB) is a library that supports scalable parallel programming using standard ISO C++ code. It does not require special languages or compilers. It is designed to promote scalable data parallel programming. Additionally, it fully supports nested parallelism, so you can build larger parallel components from smaller parallel components. To use the library, you specify tasks, not threads, and let the library map tasks onto threads in an efficient manner.

Many of the library interfaces employ generic programming, in which interfaces are defined by requirements on types and not specific types. The C++ Standard Template Library (STL) is an example of generic programming. Generic programming enables oneTBB to be flexible yet efficient. The generic interfaces enable you to customize components to your specific needs.

Note

oneAPI Threading Building Blocks (oneTBB) requires C++11 standard compiler support.

The net result is that oneTBB enables you to specify parallelism far more conveniently than using raw threads, and at the same time can improve performance.