Abstract. The RAMpage hierarchy moves main memory up a level to replace the lowest-level cache by an equivalent-sized SRAM main memory, with a TLB caching page translations for that main memory. This paper illustrates how more aggressive components higher

Prefetchrequiresloadingacacheblockbeforeitisrequested,eitherbyhard-ware[5]orwithcompilersupport[25];predictiveprefetchattemptstoimproveaccuracyofprefetchforrelativelyvariedmemoryaccesspatterns[1].Incriticalword rst,thewordcontainingthereferencewhichcausedthemissisfetched rst,followedbytherestoftheblock[11].Memorycompressionine ectreduceslatencybecauseasmalleramountofinformationmustbemovedonamiss.Theoverheadmustbelessthanthetimesaved[18].Therearemanyvariationsonwritemissstrategy,butthemoste ectivegenerallyincludewritebu ering[17].Anon-blockingcache(lockup-free)cachecanallowanaggressivepipelinetocontinuewithotherinstructionswhilewaitingforamiss[4].

SMTisaimedatmaskingDRAMlatencyaswellasothercausesofpipelinestalls,byhardwaresupportformorethanoneactivethread[19].SMTaimstosolveawiderrangeofCPUperformanceproblemsthanRAMpage.

Theseideashavecosts(e.g.,prefetchingcandisplaceneededcontent,causingunnecessarymisses).ThebiggestproblemisthatmostoftheseapproachesdonotscalewiththegrowingCPU-DRAMspeedgap.Criticalword rstislesshelpfulaslatencyforonereferencegrowsinrelationtototaltimeforabigDRAMtransaction.Prefetch,memorycompressionandnonblockingcacheshavelimitsastohowmuchtheycanreducee ectivelatency.Writebu eringcanscaleprovidedbu ersizecanbescaled,andreferencestobu eredwritescanbehandledbeforetheyarewrittenback.SMTcouldmaskmuchofthetimespentwaitingforDRAM,butatthecostofamorecomplexCPU.

Reducingmisseshasbeenaddressedbyincreasingcachesize,associativity,orboth.Therearelimitsonhowlargeacachecanbeatagivenspeed,sothenumberoflevelshasincreased.Fullassociativitycanbeachievedinhardwarewithlessoverheadforhitsthanaconventionalfully-associativecache,inanindirectindexcache(IIC),bywhatamountstoahardwareimplementationofRAMpage’spagetablelookup[10].AdrawbackofIICisthatallreferencesincuroverheadofanextralevelofindirection.Earlierworkonsoftware-basedcachemanagementhasnotfocusedonreplacementpolicy[7,14].

TheadvantagesofRAMpageoverSMTandotherhardware-basedmulti-threadingapproachesarethattheCPUcanbekeptsimple,andsoftwareim-plementationofsupportformultipleprocessesismore exible(thebalancebe-tweenmultitaskingandmultithreadingcanbedynamicallyadjusted,accordingtoworkload).AnadvantageofIICisthattheOSneednotbeinvokedtohandletheequivalentofaTLBmissinRAMpage.AscomparedwithRAMpage,anIIChasmoreoverheadforahit,andlessforamiss.

2.4Summary

RAMpagemaskstimewhichwouldotherwisebespentwaitingforDRAMbytakingcontextswitchesonmisses.OtherapproachseitherdonotaimtomasktimespentwaitingforDRAM,buttoreduceit,orrequiremorecomplexhard-ware.RAMpagecanpotentiallybecombinedwithsomeoftheotherapproaches(suchasSMT),soitisnotnecessarilyincon ictwithotherideas.