On memory models and cache management for shared-memory multiprocessors

Abstract

A popular approach to designing shared-memory computer systems is to specify a memory model upon which a variety of program execution models may be implemented. Alternatively, one may choose a desired program execution model (PXM) and specify a memory model suited to the PXM. We argue that this second approach is to be preferred because it avoids the trap of specifying features of the memory model (consistency, for example) that may not needed to implement a desired program excecution model. We discuss a program execution model based on functional programming principles and show how an abstract architecture derived from the program model may be implemented with caching without depending on a coherent distributed memory.