Using Simultaneous Multithreaded Processors for Soft Real-Time Applications

本研究关注的是在软实时应用程序（如多媒体应用程序）中使用同步多线程（SMT）处理器。SMT处理器有可能通过同时运行多个线程来提供高吞吐量，而软实时应用程序是越来越重要的工作负载。然而，在实时应用程序中使用SMT处理器在很大程度上尚未得到探索。大多数关于SMT的工作都是由提高吞吐量的目标驱动的。实时应用程序还需要高可调度性（即，满足最后期限的能力）和可预测性。此外，此类应用通常运行在能源和热功率受限的环境中。这项工作旨在为SMT处理器开发协同调度选择和资源共享算法（以及随后的入学测试），这些算法将(1)最大化指令吞吐量，(2)最大化可调度性，(3)最大化执行时间可预测性，(4)最小化能源，(5)最小化热功率，用于软实时应用，如多媒体应用。这是第一个考虑时间可调度性和可预测性问题的工作，并将它们与实时应用和SMT的能源和热考虑因素集成在一起。如果没有这项研究，越来越重要的工作负载类别将无法利用在其他领域提供了巨大好处的架构进步。

This research concerns the use of simultaneous multithreaded (SMT) processors for soft real-time applications such as multimedia applications. SMT processors have the potential to provide high throughput by running multiple threads at the same time, and soft real-time applications are anincreasingly important workload. The use of SMT processors for real-time applications, however, has largely been unexplored.Most work on SMT has been driven by the goal of increasing throughput. Real-time applications additionally require high schedulability (i.e., the ability to meet deadlines) and predictability. Further, such applications often run in energy and thermal power constrained environments. This workseeks to develop co-schedule selection and resource sharing algorithms (and consequent admission tests) for SMT processors that will (1) maximize instruction throughput, (2) maximize schedulability, (3)maximize execution time predictability, (4) minimize energy, and (5) minimize thermal power, for soft real-time applications such as multimedia applications. This is the first work that considers the issues of temporal schedulability and predictability, and integrates them with energy and thermal considerations, for real-time applications and SMT. Without this research, an increasingly important class of workloads would be unable to exploit an architectural advance that has provided large benefits in other domains.