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Estimating Effective Prefetch Distance in Threaded Prefetching for Linked Data Structures

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Abstract

Helper threaded prefetching based on chip multiprocessor has been shown to reduce memory latency and improve overall system performance, and has been explored in linked data structures accesses. In our earlier work, we had proposed an effective threaded prefetching technique that balances delinquent loads between main thread and helper thread to improve effectiveness of prefetching. In this paper, we analyze memory access characteristic of specific application to estimate effective prefetch distance range for our proposed threaded prefetching technique. The effect of hardware prefetchers on the estimation is also exploited. We discuss key design issues of our proposed method and present preliminary experimental results. Our experimental evaluations indicated that the bounded range of effective prefetch distance can be determined using our method, and the optimal prefetch distances can be determined based on the estimated effective prefetch distance range by few trial runs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering College, Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, Zhengzhou, China

    Yan Huang

  2. School of Computer Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Yan Huang, Zhi-Min Gu, Jie Tang, Min Cai, Jianxun Zhang & Ninghan Zheng

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  1. Yan Huang
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  2. Zhi-Min Gu
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  3. Jie Tang
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  4. Min Cai
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  5. Jianxun Zhang
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  6. Ninghan Zheng
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Correspondence to Zhi-Min Gu.

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Huang, Y., Gu, ZM., Tang, J. et al. Estimating Effective Prefetch Distance in Threaded Prefetching for Linked Data Structures. Int J Parallel Prog 40, 465–487 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10766-012-0194-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10766-012-0194-9

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