Automatic memory hierarchy characterization
Automatic memory hierarchy characterization
复制标题
自动内存层次表征
DOI：
10.1109/ispass.2001.990684
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发表时间：
2001
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
J. Davidson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Clark L. Coleman;J. Davidson
随着存储器速度和处理器速度之间的差距越来越大，通过程序转换来提高存储器系统的性能变得越来越重要。为了理解和优化内存性能，性能分析和编译器设计的研究人员和实践者需要详细了解目标计算机系统的内存层次结构。不幸的是，关于内存层次结构的准确信息并不容易获得。厂商的微处理器文档通常是不完整的、模糊的，或者更糟的是，在描述重要的片上存储器参数时是错误的。此外，今天的计算机系统包含复杂的多级存储系统，其中处理器只是存储系统的一个组成部分。完整的存储系统文档的准确性也缺乏。本文描述了一个可移植程序的实现，该程序可以自动确定计算机系统中所有重要的内存层次参数。自动确定内存层次参数优于依赖供应商数据。通过使用几种新兴的性能计数器应用程序编程接口，确定和验证许多不同计算机系统的内存层次结构参数，证明了该方法的健壮性和可移植性。
As the gap between memory speed and processor speed grows, program transformations to improve the peflormance of the memory system have become increasingly important. To understand and optimize memory performance, researchers and practitioners in performance analysis and compiler design require a detailed understanding of the memory hierarchy of the target computer system. Unfortunately, accurate information about the memory hierarchy is not easy to obtain. Vendor microprocessor documentation is ofen incomplete, vague, or worse, erroneous in its description of important on-chip memory parameters. Furthermore, today S computer systems contain complex, multi-level memory systems where the processor is but one component of the memory system. The accuracy of the documentation on the complete memory system is also lacking. This paper describes the implementation of a portable program that automatically determines all of a computer system’s important memory hierarchy parameters. Automatic determination of memory hierarchy parameters is shown to be superior to reliance on vendor data. The robustness and portability of the approach is demonstrated by determining and validating the memory hierarchy parameters for a number of different computer systems, using several of the emerging performance counter application programming inte$aces.