SC12 Home > SC12 Schedule > SC12 Presentation - Hardware-Software Coherence Protocol for the Coexistence of Caches and Local Memories

SCHEDULE: NOV 10-16, 2012

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Hardware-Software Coherence Protocol for the Coexistence of Caches and Local Memories

SESSION: Memory Systems

EVENT TYPE: Papers

TIME: 2:00PM - 2:30PM

SESSION CHAIR: Jaejin Lee

AUTHOR(S):Lluc Alvarez, Lluís Vilanova, Marc Gonzalez, Xavier Martorell, Nacho Navarro, Eduard Ayguade

ROOM:355-D

ABSTRACT:
Cache coherence protocols limit the scalability of chip multiprocessors. One solution is to introduce a local memory alongside the cache hierarchy, forming a hybrid memory system. Local memories are more power-efficient than caches and they do not generate coherence traffic but they suffer from poor programmability. When non-predictable memory access patterns are found compilers do not succeed in generating code because of the incoherency between the two storages. This paper proposes a coherence protocol for hybrid memory systems that allows the compiler to generate code even in the presence of memory aliasing problems. Coherency is ensured by a simple software/hardware co-design where the compiler identifies potentially incoherent memory accesses and the hardware diverts them to the correct copy of the data. The coherence protocol introduces overheads of 0.24% in execution time and of 1.06% in energy consumption to enable the usage of the hybrid memory system.

Chair/Author Details:

Jaejin Lee (Chair) - Seoul National University

Lluc Alvarez - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Lluís Vilanova - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Marc Gonzalez - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Xavier Martorell - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Nacho Navarro - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Eduard Ayguade - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

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Hardware-Software Coherence Protocol for the Coexistence of Caches and Local Memories

SESSION: Memory Systems

EVENT TYPE:

TIME: 2:00PM - 2:30PM

SESSION CHAIR: Jaejin Lee

AUTHOR(S):Lluc Alvarez, Lluís Vilanova, Marc Gonzalez, Xavier Martorell, Nacho Navarro, Eduard Ayguade

ROOM:355-D

ABSTRACT:
Cache coherence protocols limit the scalability of chip multiprocessors. One solution is to introduce a local memory alongside the cache hierarchy, forming a hybrid memory system. Local memories are more power-efficient than caches and they do not generate coherence traffic but they suffer from poor programmability. When non-predictable memory access patterns are found compilers do not succeed in generating code because of the incoherency between the two storages. This paper proposes a coherence protocol for hybrid memory systems that allows the compiler to generate code even in the presence of memory aliasing problems. Coherency is ensured by a simple software/hardware co-design where the compiler identifies potentially incoherent memory accesses and the hardware diverts them to the correct copy of the data. The coherence protocol introduces overheads of 0.24% in execution time and of 1.06% in energy consumption to enable the usage of the hybrid memory system.

Chair/Author Details:

Jaejin Lee (Chair) - Seoul National University

Lluc Alvarez - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Lluís Vilanova - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Marc Gonzalez - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Xavier Martorell - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Nacho Navarro - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Eduard Ayguade - Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Add to iCal  Click here to download .ics calendar file

Add to Outlook  Click here to download .vcs calendar file

Add to Google Calendarss  Click here to add event to your Google Calendar