Using incorrect speculation to prefetch data in a concurrent multithreaded processor

Ying Chen, Resit Sendag, David J Lilja

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Concurrent multithreaded architectures exploit both instruction-level and thread-level parallelism through a combination of branch prediction and thread-level control speculation. The resulting speculative issuing of load instructions in these architectures can significantly impact the performance of the memory hierarchy as the system exploits higher degrees of parallelism. In this study, we investigate the effects of executing the mispredicted load instructions on the cache performance of a scalable multithreaded architecture. We show that the execution of loads from the wrongly-predicted branch path within a thread, or from a wrongly forked thread, can result in an indirect prefetching effect for later correctly-executed paths. By continuing to execute the mispredicted load instructions even after the instruction- or thread-level control speculation is known to be incorrect, the cache misses for the correctly predicted paths and threads can be reduced, typically by 42-73%. We introduce the small, fully-associative Wrong Execution Cache (WEC) to eliminate the potential pollution that can be caused by the execution of the mispredicted load instructions. Our simulation results show that the WEC can improve the performance of a concurrent multithreaded architecture up to 18.5% on the benchmark programs tested, with an average improvement of 9.7%, due to the reductions in the number of cache misses.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2003
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)0769519261, 9780769519265
DOIs
StatePublished - 2003
EventInternational Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2003 - Nice, France
Duration: Apr 22 2003Apr 26 2003

Publication series

NameProceedings - International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2003

Other

OtherInternational Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2003
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityNice
Period4/22/034/26/03

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2003 IEEE.

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