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1997 International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP '97)
Hybrid compiler/hardware prefetching for multiprocessors using low-overhead cache miss traps
Bloomington, IL
August 11-August 15
ISBN: 0-8186-8108-X
J. Skeppstedt, Dept. of Comput. Eng., Chalmers Univ. of Technol., Goteborg, Sweden
M. Dubois, Dept. of Comput. Eng., Chalmers Univ. of Technol., Goteborg, Sweden
We propose and evaluate a new data prefetching technique for cache coherent multiprocessors. Prefetches are issued by a prefetch engine which is controlled by the compiler. Second-level cache misses generate cache miss traps, and start the prefetch engine in a trap handler generated by the compiler. The only instruction overhead in our approach is when a trap handler terminates after data arrives. We present the functionality of the prefetch engine and a compiler algorithm to control it. We also study emulation of the prefetch engine in software. Our techniques are evaluated on six parallel applications using a compiler which incorporates our algorithm and a simulated multiprocessor. The prefetch engines remove up to 67% of the memory access stall time at an instruction overhead less than 0.42%. The emulated prefetch engines remove in general less stall time at a higher instruction overhead.
Index Terms:
multiprocessing systems; hybrid compiler/hardware prefetching; multiprocessors; low-overhead cache miss traps; data prefetching technique; cache coherent multiprocessors; compiler; cache miss traps; trap handler; simulated multiprocessor
Citation:
J. Skeppstedt, M. Dubois, "Hybrid compiler/hardware prefetching for multiprocessors using low-overhead cache miss traps," icpp, pp.298, 1997 International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP '97), 1997
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