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A Study of the EARTH-MANNA Multithreaded System

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Abstract

Multithreaded architectures have been proposed for future multiprocessor systems. However, some open issues remain. Can multithreading be supported in a multiprocessor so that it can tolerate synchronization and communication latencies, with little intrusion on the performance of sequentially-executed code? How much does such support contribute to scalable performance when communication and synchronization demands are high? In this paper, we describe the design of EARTH, an architecture which addresses these issues. Each processor in EARTH has an off-the-shelf Execution Unit (EU) for executing threads, and an ASIC Synchronization Unit (SU) supporting dataflow-like thread synchronizations, scheduling, and remote requests. In preparation for an implementation of the SU, we have emulated a basic EARTH model on MANNA 2.0, an existing multiprocessor whose hardware configuration closely matches EARTH. This EARTH-MANNA testbed is fully functional, enabling us to experiment with large benchmarks with impressive speed. With this platform, we demonstrate that multithreading support can be efficiently implemented (with little emulation overhead) in a multiprocessor without a major impact on uniprocessor performance. Also, we measure how much basic multithreading support can help in tolerating increasing communication/synchronization demands.

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Author notes

  1. Herbert H. J. Hum

    Present address: Measurement, Architecture and Planning, Intel. Corp., 2111 NE 25 th Ave., Hillsboro, OR, 97124-5961, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, McGill University, 3480 University Street, Montréal, Canada, H3A 2A7

    Olivier Maquelin, Kevin B. Theobald, Xinmin Tian, Guang R. Gao & Laurie J. Hendren

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  1. Herbert H. J. Hum
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  2. Olivier Maquelin
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  3. Kevin B. Theobald
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  4. Xinmin Tian
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  5. Guang R. Gao
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  6. Laurie J. Hendren
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Hum, H.H.J., Maquelin, O., Theobald, K.B. et al. A Study of the EARTH-MANNA Multithreaded System. Int J Parallel Prog 24, 319–348 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03356753

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