A Software-Managed Coherent Memory Architecture for Manycores

Abstract

Cache coherent Non-Uniform Memory Access (cc-NUMA) architectures have been widely used for chip multiprocessors (CMPs). However, they require complicated hardware to properly handle the cache coherence problem. Moreover, it generates heavy on-chip network traffic due to the coherence enforcement. In this work, we propose a simple software-managed coherent memory architecture for many cores. Our memory architecture exploits explicitly addressed local stores. Instead of implementing the complicated cache coherence protocol in hardware, coherence and consistency are supported by software, such as a runtime or an operating system. The local stores together with the software leverage conventional caches to make the architecture much simpler and to generate much less network traffic than conventional ccNUMA-based CMPs. Experimental results indicate that our approach is promising.