1. MBG 1 CIS501, Fall 99 Lecture 11: Memory Hierarchy: Caches, Main Memory, & Virtual Memory Michael B. Greenwald Computer Architecture CIS 501 Fall 1999

2. MBG 2 CIS501, Fall 99 Administration Homework #3: goal-reduced. –Prob 1: 20 points. Prob 2: 40 Out of email contact should end after the weekend.

3. MBG 3 CIS501, Fall 99 Improving Cache Performance Average memory-access time = Hit time + Miss rate x Miss penalty (ns or clocks) Improve performance by: 1. Reduce the miss rate, 2. Reduce the miss penalty, or 3. Reduce the time to hit in the cache.

4. MBG 4 CIS501, Fall 99 5th Miss Penalty & L2 Cache L2 Equations AMAT = Hit Time L1 + Miss Rate L1 x Miss Penalty L1 Miss Penalty L1 = Hit Time L2 + Miss Rate L2 x Miss Penalty L2 AMAT = Hit Time L1 + Miss Rate L1 x (Hit Time L2 + Miss Rate L2 + Miss Penalty L2 ) Definitions: –Local miss rate— misses in this cache divided by the total number of memory accesses to this cache (Miss rate L2 ) –Global miss rate—misses in this cache divided by the total number of memory accesses generated by the CPU (Miss Rate L1 x Miss Rate L2 ) –Global Miss Rate is what matters

5. MBG 5 CIS501, Fall 99 Reducing Misses: Which apply to L2 Cache? Reducing Miss Rate 1. Reduce Misses via Larger Block Size 2. Reduce Conflict Misses via Higher Associativity 3. Reducing Conflict Misses via Victim Cache 4. Reducing Conflict Misses via Pseudo-Associativity 5. Reducing Misses by HW Prefetching Instr, Data 6. Reducing Misses by SW Prefetching Data 7. Reducing Capacity/Conf. Misses by Compiler Optimizations … But: must be careful about CPU pin bandwidth when you go off-chip (Perl &Sites [OSDI96])

6. MBG 6 CIS501, Fall 99 L2 cache block size & A.M.A.T. 32KB L1, 8 byte path to memory

7. MBG 7 CIS501, Fall 99 Reducing Miss Penalty Summary Five techniques –Read priority over write on miss –Subblock placement –Early Restart and Critical Word First on miss –Non-blocking Caches (Hit under Miss, Miss under Miss) –Second Level Cache Can be applied recursively to Multilevel Caches –Danger is that time to DRAM will grow with multiple levels in between (miss rate is higher for lower levels, also > % writes) –First attempts at L2 caches can make things worse, since increased worst case is worse

8. MBG 8 CIS501, Fall 99 What is the Impact of What You’ve Learned About Caches? 1960-1985: Speed = ƒ(no. operations) 1990 –Pipelined Execution & Fast Clock Rate –Out-of-Order execution –Superscalar Instruction Issue 1998: Speed = ƒ(non-cached memory accesses) Superscalar, Out-of-Order machines hide L1 data cache miss (­5 clocks) but not L2 cache miss (­50 clocks)?

9. MBG 9 CIS501, Fall 99 Cache Optimization Summary TechniqueMRMPHTComplexity Larger Block Size+–0 Higher Associativity+–1 Victim Caches+2 Pseudo-Associative Caches +2 HW Prefetching of Instr/Data+2 Compiler Controlled Prefetching+3 Compiler Reduce Misses+0 Priority to Read Misses+1 Subblock Placement ++1 Early Restart & Critical Word 1st +2 Non-Blocking Caches+3 Second Level Caches+2 miss rate miss penalty

10. MBG 10 CIS501, Fall 99 Review: Improving Cache Performance 1. Reduce the miss rate, 2. Reduce the miss penalty, or 3. Reduce the time to hit in the cache.

11. MBG 11 CIS501, Fall 99 1. Fast Hit times via Small and Simple Caches Coupled to clock rate Direct Mapped, faster and allows overlap tag check and data load. On chip (Why Alpha 21164 has 8KB Instruction and 8KB data cache + 96KB second level cache?)

12. MBG 12 CIS501, Fall 99 Every memory reference must be translated from virtual address (logical, per-process, name) to physical address (where memory is currently located). Lookup in page table (itself in memory and on disk) based on high order bits (“page”). Why not just send virtual address to cache? Called Virtually Addressed Cache or just Virtual Cache vs. Physical Cache 2. Fast hits by Avoiding Address Translation

13. MBG 13 CIS501, Fall 99 Virtually Addressed Caches CPU TB $ MEM VA PA Conventional Organization CPU $ TB MEM VA PA Virtually Addressed Cache Translate only on miss Synonym Problem CPU $TB MEM VA PA Tags PA Overlap $ access with VA translation: requires $ index to remain invariant across translation VA Tags L2 $

14. MBG 14 CIS501, Fall 99 Why aren’t all caches virtual? There are problems: –Every time process is switched logically must flush the cache; otherwise get false hits »Cost is time to flush + “compulsory” misses from empty cache –Dealing with aliases (sometimes called synonyms); Two different virtual addresses map to same physical address –I/O must interact with cache, so need virtual address: what if not currently running process? Solution to cache flush –Add process identifier tag that identifies process as well as address within process: can’t get a hit if wrong process Solution to aliases –Force aliases to be identical in the last N bits of their virtual addresses (called page coloring). If direct mapped and indexed by > N lower bits, then guarantee that no aliases simultaneously in the cache. 2. Fast hits by Avoiding Address Translation

15. MBG 15 CIS501, Fall 99 2. Fast Cache Hits by Avoiding Translation: Process ID impact Black is uniprocess Light Gray is multiprocess when flush cache Dark Gray is multiprocess when use Process ID tag Y axis: Miss Rates up to 20% X axis: Cache size from 2 KB to 1024 KB

16. MBG 16 CIS501, Fall 99 2. Fast Cache Hits by Avoiding Translation : Index with Physical Portion of Address If index is physical part of address, can start tag access in parallel with translation so that can compare to physical tag (won’t change) Limits DM cache to page size: what if want bigger caches? –Higher associativity moves barrier to right (even > 8-way) –Page coloring (require Paddr of Vaddr to match low N bits). Page Address Page Offset Address Tag Index Block Offset

17. MBG 17 CIS501, Fall 99 Pipeline Tag Check and Update Cache as separate stages; current write tag check & previous write cache update Only STORES in the pipeline; empty during a miss Store r2, (r1)Check r1 Add-- Sub-- Store r4, (r3) M[r1]<-r2& check r3 In shade is “Delayed Write Buffer”; must be checked on reads; either complete write or read from buffer 3. Fast Hit Times Via Pipelined Writes

18. MBG 18 CIS501, Fall 99 4. Fast Writes on Misses Via Small Subblocks If most writes are 1 word, subblock size is 1 word, & write through then always write subblock & tag immediately –Tag match and valid bit already set: Writing the block was proper, & nothing lost by setting valid bit on again. –Tag match and valid bit not set: The tag match means that this is the proper block; writing the data into the subblock makes it appropriate to turn the valid bit on. –Tag mismatch: This is a miss and will modify the data portion of the block. Since write-through cache, no harm was done; memory still has an up-to- date copy of the old value. Only the tag to the address of the write and the valid bits of the other subblock need be changed because the valid bit for this subblock has already been set Doesn’t work with write back due to last case

19. MBG 19 CIS501, Fall 99 Cache Optimization Summary TechniqueMRMPHTComplexity Larger Block Size+–0 Higher Associativity+–1 Victim Caches+2 Pseudo-Associative Caches +2 HW Prefetching of Instr/Data+2 Compiler Controlled Prefetching+3 Compiler Reduce Misses+0 Priority to Read Misses+1 Subblock Placement ++1 Early Restart & Critical Word 1st +2 Non-Blocking Caches+3 Second Level Caches+2 Small & Simple Caches–+0 Avoiding Address Translation+2 Pipelining Writes+1 miss rate hit time miss penalty

20. MBG 20 CIS501, Fall 99 Main Memory Background Performance of Main Memory: –Latency: Cache Miss Penalty »Access Time: time between request and word arrives »Cycle Time: time between requests –Bandwidth: I/O & Large Block Miss Penalty (L2) Main Memory is DRAM: Dynamic Random Access Memory –Dynamic since needs to be refreshed periodically (8 ms, 1% time) –Addresses divided into 2 halves (Memory as a 2D matrix): »RAS or Row Access Strobe »CAS or Column Access Strobe Cache uses SRAM: Static Random Access Memory –No refresh (6 transistors/bit vs. 1 transistorSize: DRAM/SRAM ­ 4-8, Cost/Cycle time: SRAM/DRAM ­ 8-16

21. MBG 21 CIS501, Fall 99 Core Memory “Out-of-Core”, “In-Core,” “Core Dump”? Non-volatile, magnetic Lost to 4 Kbit DRAM Access time 750 ns, cycle time 1500-3000 ns

22. MBG 22 CIS501, Fall 99 DRAM logical organization (4 Mbit) Square root of bits per RAS/CAS Column Decoder SenseAmps & I/O MemoryArray (2,048 x 2,048) A0…A10 … 11 D Q Word Line Storage Cell Data Out Bit Line Data In Row Decoder Address Buffer

23. MBG 23 CIS501, Fall 99 DRAM physical organization (4 Mbit) Block Row Dec. 9 : 512 Row Block Row Dec. 9 : 512 ColumnAddress … Block Row Dec. 9 : 512 Block Row Dec. 9 : 512 … Block 0Block 3 … I/O D Q Address 2 8 I/Os