Configurable Transactional Memory

Programming efficiency of heterogeneous concurrent systems is limited by the use of lock-based synchronization mechanisms. Transactional memories can greatly improve the programming efficiency of such systems. In fieldprogrammable computing machines, a conventional fixed transactional memory becomes inefficient use of the silicon. We propose configurable transactional memory (CTM) as a mechanism to implement application specific synchronization that utilizes the field-programmability of such devices to match with the requirements of an application. The proposed configurable transactional memory is targeted at embedded applications and is area efficient compared to conventional schemes that are implemented with cache-coherent protocols. In particular, the CTM is designed to be incorporated in to compilation and synthesis paths of either high-level languages or during system creation process using tools such as Xilinx EDK. We study the impact of deploying a CTM in a packet metering and ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: FCCM
• Authors: Christoforos Kachris, Chidamber Kulkarni
• Keywords: Configurable Transactional Memory, FCCM 2007, Hardware, Programming Efficiency, Transactional Memory