Four-way Set-associative Cache Research Articles

4Ghz 고성능 CPU 위한 캐시 메모리 시스템

본 논문에서는 4Ghz의 빠른 클럭 속도의 CPU에 적합한 고성능 L1 캐시 메모리 구조를 제안한다. 제안된 캐시 메모리는 빠른 접근 시간을 위한 직접사상 캐시와 시간적 지역성을 고려한 2-way 연관사상 버퍼 그리고 버퍼 선택 테이블로 구성된다. 빠른 접근 시간을 보장하는 직접사상 캐시는 가장 최근 접근한 데이터를 저장하게 된다. 만약에 직접사상 캐쉬로부터 추출되는 데이터가 다시 참조되어질 높은 확률을 가지는 데이터이면 그 데이터들은 2-웨이 연관사상 버퍼로 선택적으로 저장되어 진다. 그리고 고성능과 저전력의 효과를 높이기 위하여 2-웨이 연관사상 버퍼중 하나의 웨이만 선택적으로 먼저 접근되어지며, 이러한 동작은 버퍼 선택 테이블에 의해 선택된다. 시뮬레이션 결과에 따르면, 에너지 소비와 평균 메모리 접근 시간을 고려한 에너지<TEX>$^*$</TEX>지연시간에서 두배 이상의 크기를 가지는 직접사상 캐시, 4-웨이 연관사상 캐시 그리고 희생 캐시에 비해 각각 45%, 70% 그리고 75%의 성능향상을 이루었다. TIn this paper, we propose a high performance L1 cache structure on the high clock CPU of 4GHz. The proposed cache memory consists of three parts, i.e., a direct-mapped cache to support fast access time, a two-way set associative buffer to exploit temporal locality, and a buffer-select table. The most recently accessed data is stored in the direct-mapped cache. If a data has a high probability of a repeated reference, when the data is replaced from the direct-mapped cache, the data is selectively stored into the two-way set associative buffer. For the high performance and low power consumption, we propose an one way among two ways set associative buffer is selectively accessed based on the buffer-select table(BST). According to simulation results, Energy <TEX>$^*$</TEX> Delay product can improve about 45%, 70% and 75% compared with a direct mapped cache, a four-way set associative cache, and a victim cache with two times more space respectively.

Scratchpad Memory Management Techniques for Code in Embedded Systems without an MMU

We propose a code scratchpad memory (SPM) management technique with demand paging for embedded systems that have no memory management unit. Based on profiling information, a postpass optimizer analyzes and optimizes application binaries in a fully automated process. It classifies the code of the application including libraries into three classes based on a mixed integer linear programming formulation: External code is executed directly from the external memory. Pinned code is loaded into the SPM when the application starts and stays in the SPM. Paged code is loaded into/unloaded from the SPM on demand. We evaluate the proposed technique by running 14 embedded applications both on a cycle-accurate ARM processor simulator and an ARM1136JF-S core. On the simulator, the reference case, a four-way set-associative cache, is compared to a direct-mapped cache and an SPM of comparable die area. On average, we observe an improvement of 12 percent in runtime performance and a 21 percent reduction in energy consumption. On the ARM11 board, the reference case run on the 16-KB four-way set-associative cache is compared to the demand paging solution on the 16-KB SPM, optionally supported by the cache. The measured results show both a runtime performance improvement and a reduction of the energy consumption by 23 percent, on average.

Cache Optimization for H.264/AVC Motion Compensation

In this letter, we propose a cache organization that substantially reduces the memory bandwidth of motion compensation (MC) in the H.264/AVC decoders. To reduce duplicated memory accesses to P and B pictures, we employ a four-way set-associative cache in which its index bits are composed of horizontal and vertical address bits of the frame buffer and each line stores an 8 x 2 pixel data in the reference frames. Moreover, we alleviate the data fragmentation problem by selecting its line size that equals the minimum access size of the DDR SDRAM. The bandwidth of the optimized cache averaged over five QCIF IBBP image sequences requires only 129% of the essential bandwidth of an H.264/AVC MC.

A highly configurable cache for low energy embedded systems

Energy consumption is a major concern in many embedded computing systems. Several studies have shown that cache memories account for about 50% of the total energy consumed in these systems. The performance of a given cache architecture is determined, to a large degree, by the behavior of the application executing on the architecture. Desktop systems have to accommodate a very wide range of applications and therefore the cache architecture is usually set by the manufacturer as a best compromise given current applications, technology, and cost. Unlike desktop systems, embedded systems are designed to run a small range of well-defined applications. In this context, a cache architecture that is tuned for that narrow range of applications can have both increased performance as well as lower energy consumption. We introduce a novel cache architecture intended for embedded microprocessor platforms. The cache has three software-configurable parameters that can be tuned to particular applications. First, the cache's associativity can be configured to be direct-mapped, two-way, or four-way set-associative, using a novel technique we call way concatenation . Second, the cache's total size can be configured by shutting down ways. Finally, the cache's line size can be configured to have 16, 32, or 64 bytes. A study of 23 programs drawn from Powerstone, MediaBench, and Spec2000 benchmark suites shows that the configurable cache tuned to each program saved energy for every program compared to a conventional four-way set-associative cache as well as compared to a conventional direct-mapped cache, with an average savings of energy related to memory access of over 40%.

A way-halting cache for low-energy high-performance systems

Caches contribute to much of a microprocessor system's power and energy consumption. Numerous new cache architectures, such as phased, pseudo-set-associative, way predicting, reactive-associative, way-shutdown, way-concatenating, and highly-associative, are intended to reduce power and/or energy, but they all impose some performance overhead. We have developed a new cache architecture, called a way-halting cache, that reduces energy further than previously mentioned architectures, while imposing no performance overhead. Our way-halting cache is a four-way set-associative cache that stores the four lowest-order bits of all ways' tags into a fully associative memory, which we call the halt tag array. The lookup in the halt tag array is done in parallel with, and is no slower than, the set-index decoding. The halt tag array predetermines which tags cannot match due to their low-order 4 bits mismatching. Further accesses to ways with known mismatching tags are then halted, thus saving power. Our halt tag array has an additional feature of using static logic only, rather than dynamic logic used in highly associative caches, making our cache simpler to design with existing tools. We provide data from experiments on 29 benchmarks drawn from Powerstone, Mediabench, and Spec 2000, based on our layouts in 0.18 micron CMOS technology. On average, we obtained 55% savings of memory-access related energy over a conventional four-way set-associative cache. We show that savings are greater than previous methods, and nearly twice that of highly associative caches, while imposing no performance overhead and only 2% cache area overhead.

64-KByte sum-addressed-memory cache with 1.6-ns cycle and 2.6-ns latency

Address base-plus-offset summing is merged into the decode structure of this 64-KByte (512-Kbit), four-way set-associative cache. This address adder avoids time-consuming carry propagation by using an A+B=K equality test. The combined add and access operations are implemented using delayed-reset logic and a 0.25-/spl mu/m process, This wave pipelined RAM achieves a 1.6-ns cycle time and 2.6-ns latency for the combined address add and cache access.

Two fast and high-associativity cache schemes

In the race to improve cache performance, many researchers have proposed schemes that increase a cache's associativity. The associativity of a cache is the number of places in the cache where a block may reside. In a direct-mapped cache, which has an associativity of 1, there is only one location to search for a match for each reference. In a cache with associativity n-an n-way set-associative cache-there are n locations. Increasing associativity reduces the miss rate by decreasing the number of conflict, or interference, references. The column-associative cache and the predictive sequential associative cache seem to have achieved near-optimal performance for an associativity of two. Increasing associativity beyond two, therefore, is one of the most important ways to further improve cache performance. We propose two schemes for implementing associativity greater than two: the sequential multicolumn cache, which is an extension of the column-associative cache, and the parallel multicolumn cache. For an associativity of four, they achieve the low miss rate of a four-way set-associative cache. Our simulation results show that both schemes can effectively reduce the average access time.

A 1-V, 100-MHz, 10-mW cache using a separated bit-line memory hierarchy architecture and domino tag comparators

A 1-V 16-KB (L2) 2-KB (L1) four-way set-associative cache was fabricated using a 0.25-/spl mu/m CMOS technology for future low-power high-speed microprocessors. Effective latency of 6.9 ns and power consumption of 10 mW at 100 MHz are obtained at a supply voltage of 1 V. This performance is achieved by using a new separated bit-line memory hierarchy architecture (SBMHA) that speeds up latency and reduces power consumption, and domino tag comparators (DTC's) that reduce the power dissipation of tag comparisons.

Fault-tolerant architecture in a cache memory control LSI

A real-time degradable four-way set-associative cache memory control (CMC) LSI is described. Three kinds of errors, address parity error, comparator error, and multihit error, can cause functional degradation by killing the associative unit corresponding to the fault detection. The parity generator and the double comparator have no effect on the timing-sensitive path delay because of the parallel configuration of the circuits. The multihit detector occupies about 16% of the propagation delay of the critical path, from the external address input to the hit/miss output. >