Title
Leveraging cache coherence in active memory systems
Abstract
Active memory systems help processors overcome the memory wall when applications exhibit poor cache behavior. They consist of either active memory elements that perform data parallel computations in the memory system itself, or an active memory controller that supports address re-mapping techniques that improve data locality. Both active memory approaches create coherence problems---even on uniprocessor systems---since there are either additional processors operating on the data directly, or the processor is allowed to refer to the same data via more than one address. While most active memory implementations require cache flushes, we propose a new technique to solve the coherence problem by extending the coherence protocol. Our active memory controller leverages and extends the coherence mechanism, so that re-mapping techniques work transparently on both uniprocessor and multiprocessor systems.We present a microarchitecture for an active memory controller with a programmable core and specialized hardware that accelerates cache line assembly and disassembly. We present detailed simulation results that show uniprocessor speedup from 1.3 to 7.6 on a range of applications and microbenchmarks. In addition to uniprocessor speedup, we show single-node multiprocessor speedup for parallel active memory applications and discuss how the same controller architecture supports coherent multi-node systems called active memory clusters.
Year
DOI
Venue
2002
10.1145/514191.514196
I4CS
Keywords
Field
DocType
cache coherence,memory system,active memory system,memory wall,address re-mapping,active memory,active memory approach,active memory implementation,parallel active memory application,active memory controller leverage,active memory cluster,active memory element,active memory controller
Registered memory,Interleaved memory,Uniform memory access,Computer science,Parallel computing,Cache-only memory architecture,Real-time computing,Memory coherence,Non-uniform memory access,Memory map,Memory controller
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
1-58113-483-5
9
0.64
References 
Authors
26
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Daehyun Kim190.64
Mainak Chaudhuri230018.86
Mark Heinrich319825.11