Thread Cluster Memory Scheduling: Exploiting Differences in Memory Access Behavior

In a modern chip-multiprocessor system, memory is a shared resource among multiple concurrently executing threads. The memory scheduling algorithm should resolve memory contention by arbitrating memory access in such a way that competing threads progress at a relatively fast and even pace, resulting in high system throughput and fairness. Previously proposed memory scheduling algorithms are predominantly optimized for only one of these objectives: no scheduling algorithm provides the best system throughput and best fairness at the same time. This paper presents a new memory scheduling algorithm that addresses system throughput and fairness separately with the goal of achieving the best of both. The main idea is to divide threads into two separate clusters and employ different memory request scheduling policies in each cluster. Our proposal, Thread Cluster Memory scheduling (TCM), dynamically groups threads with similar memory access behavior into either the latency-sensitive (memory-n...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: MICRO
• Authors: Yoongu Kim, Michael Papamichael, Onur Mutlu, Mor Harchol-Balter
• Keywords: Hardware, Memory Access, MICRO 2010, Threads, Throughput