Load Balanced PIM-Based Graph Processing

Abstract

Graph processing is widely used for many modern applications, such as social networks, recommendation systems, and knowledge graphs. However, processing large-scale graphs on traditional Von Neumann architectures is challenging due to the irregular graph data and memory-bound graph algorithms. Processing-in-memory (PIM) architecture has emerged as a promising approach for accelerating graph processing by enabling computation to be performed directly on memory. Despite having many processing units and high local memory bandwidth, PIM often suffers from insufficient global communication bandwidth and high synchronization overhead due to load imbalance. This article proposes GraphB, a novel PIM-based graph processing system, to address all these issues. From the algorithm perspective, we propose a degree-aware graph partitioning algorithm that can generate balanced partitioning at a low cost. From the architecture perspective, we introduce tile buffers incorporated with an on-chip 2D-Mesh, which provides high bandwidth for inter-node data transfer. Dataflow in GraphB is designed to enable computation–communication overlap and dynamic load balancing. In a PyMTL3-based cycle-accurate simulator with five real-world graphs and three common algorithms, GraphB achieves an average 2.2× and maximum 2.8× speedup compared to the SOTA PIM-based graph processing system GraphQ.