【2014-11-23】《The Hardware/Software Interface》– Section 7

1. Cache

• Definition: computer memory with short access time used for the storage of frequently or recently used instructions or data(i-cachhe and d-cache).
• more generally, used to optimize data transfers between system elements with different characteristics (network interface cache, I/O cache, etc.)
• Hit:
• Miss:

Locality: programs tend to use data and instructions with addresses near or equal to those they have used recently

• Temporal locality:
  • Recentlly referenced items are likely to be referenced again in the near future.
• Spatial locality:
  • Items with nearby addresses tend to be referenced close together in time

Cost of Cache Misses

• Huge difference between a hit and a miss
  • could be 100x, if just L1 and main memory
• 99% hits is twice as good as 97%

Cache Performance Metrics

• Miss Rate:
  • Fraction of memory references not found in cache (misses/ accesses) = 1 – hit rate
  • Typical numbers(in percentage)
    • 3% – 10% for L1
• Hit Time
  • Time to deliver a line in the cache to the processor
    • Includes time to determine whether the line is in the cache
  • Typical hit times: 1 –2 clock cycles for L1
• Miss Penalty
  • Additional time required because of a miss
  • Typically 50 – 200 cycles

Memory Hierarchies

• Well-written programs tend to exhibit good locality
• These properties complement each other beautifully
• Fundamental idea of a memory hierarchy:
  • Each level k serves as a cache for the larger, slower, level k+1 below

Optimizations for the Memory Hierarchy

• Write code that has locality
  • Spatial: access data contiguously
  • Temporal: make sure access to the same data is not too far apart in time
• How to achieve
  • Proper choice of algorithm
  • Loop transformations

转载于:https://www.cnblogs.com/sjtujoe/p/4116481.html