Annotated Memory References: A Mechanism for Informed Cache Management

Processor cycle time continues to decrease faster than main memory access times, placing higher demands on cache memory hierarchy performance. To meet these demands, conventional cache management techniques that rely solely on naive hardware must be augmented with more sophisticated techniques. This paper investigates Informed Caching Environments (ICE) where software can assist in cache management. By exposing some cache management mechanisms and providing an efficient interface for their use, software can complement existing hardware techniques by providing hints on how to manage the cache. In this paper, we focus primarily on a mechanism for software to convey information to the memory hierarchy. We introduce a single instruction—called TAG—that can annotate subsequent memory references with a number of bits, thus avoiding major modifications to the instruction set. Simulation results show that annotating all memory reference instructions in the SPEC95 benchmarks increases ex...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: EUROPAR
• Authors: Alvin R. Lebeck, David R. Raymond, Chia-Lin Yang, Mithuna Thottethodi
• Keywords: Cache, Cache Management, Cache Management Mechanisms, Distributed And Parallel Computing, EUROPAR 1999