Performance of pruning-cache directories for large-scale multiprocessors

Authors:
  • SSS.L. Scott
    S.L. Scott
  • JGJ.R. Goodman
    J.R. Goodman
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Abstract
Multis, shared-memory multiprocessors that are implemented with single buses andsnooping cache protocols are inherently limited to a small number of processors, and, assystems grow beyond a single bus, the bandwidth requirements of broadcast operationslimit scalability. Hardware support to provide cache coherence without the use ofbroadcast can become very expensive. An approach to maintaining coherence usingapproximate information held in special-purpose caches called pruning-caches thatprovides robust performance over a wide range of workloads is presented. Thepruning-cache approach is compared to the more conventional inclusion cache forproviding multilevel inclusion (MLI) in the cache hierarchy. It is shown thatpruning-caches are more cost-effective and more robust. Using both analysis andsimulation, it is also shown that the k-ary n-cube topology provides scalable,bottleneck-free communication for uniform, point-to-point traffic.

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