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Specializing Cache Structures for High Performance and Energy Conservation in Embedded Systems

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Transactions on High-Performance Embedded Architectures and Compilers I

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((THIPEAC,volume 4050))

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Abstract

Increasingly tight energy design goals require processor architects to rethink the organizational structure of microarchitectural resources. We examine a new multilateral cache organization, replacing a conventional data cache with a set of smaller region caches that significantly reduces energy consumption with little performance impact. This is achieved by tailoring the cache resources to the specific reference characteristics of each application. In applications with small heap footprints, we save about 85% of the total cache energy. In the remaining applications, we employ a small cache for frequently accessed heap data and a larger cache for low locality data, achieving an energy savings of 80%.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ECE and CIS Departments, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300, USA

    Michael J. Geiger

  2. Computer Systems Lab, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-3801, USA

    Sally A. McKee

  3. Department of Computer Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4530, USA

    Gary S. Tyson

Authors
  1. Michael J. Geiger
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  2. Sally A. McKee
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  3. Gary S. Tyson
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Per Stenström

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© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Geiger, M.J., McKee, S.A., Tyson, G.S. (2007). Specializing Cache Structures for High Performance and Energy Conservation in Embedded Systems. In: Stenström, P. (eds) Transactions on High-Performance Embedded Architectures and Compilers I. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4050. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71528-3_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71528-3_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-71527-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-71528-3

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