Access map pattern matching for data cache prefetch

ABSTRACT

A novel data prefetching method -- access map pattern matching (AMPM) -- that uses "memory access map" is proposed. The AMPM prefetching concentrate hardware resources on collecting the access footprint of the frequently accessed area which we called "hot zones". 2-bit state is associated with each cache lines of hot zone. A set of these states is called "memory access map". Prefetch requests are generated from the pattern matching of the memory access map. The pattern matching detects multiple memory access patterns in parallel and generates more prefetch requests than conventional prefetchers. The evaluation result shows that the AMPM prefetcher improves performance by 42.0% in FP benchmarks.

REFERENCES

• 1: Yasuo Ishii , Mary Inaba , Kei Hiraki, Access map pattern matching for data cache prefetch, Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on Supercomputing, June 08-12, 2009, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA [doi>10.1145/1542275.1542349]
• 2: Kyle J. Nesbit , Ashutosh S. Dhodapkar , James E. Smith, AC/DC: An Adaptive Data Cache Prefetcher, Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques, p.135-145, September 29-October 03, 2004 [doi>10.1109/PACT.2004.4]
• 3: Kyle J. Nesbit , James E. Smith, Data Cache Prefetching Using a Global History Buffer, Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, p.96, February 14-18, 2004 [doi>10.1109/HPCA.2004.10030]
• 4: S. Palacharla , R. E. Kessler, Evaluating stream buffers as a secondary cache replacement, ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News, v.22 n.2, p.24-33, April 1994

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.1 PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURES
      C.1.0 General

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Performance

Keywords:
cache memory, data prefetch