Automatic measurement of memory hierarchy parameters

The running time of many applications is dominated by the cost of memory operations. To optimize such applications for a given platform, it is necessary to have a detailed knowledge of the memory hierarchy parameters of that platform. In practice, this information is poorly documented if at all. Moreover, there is growing interest in self-tuning, autonomic software systems that can optimize themselves for different platforms; these systems must determine memory hierarchy parameters automatically without human intervention. One solution is to use micro-benchmarks to determine the parameters of the memory hierarchy. In this paper, we argue that existing micro-benchmarks are inadequate, and present novel micro-benchmarks for determining parameters of all levels of the memory hierarchy, including registers, all data caches and the translation look-aside buffer. We have implemented these micro-benchmarks in a tool called X-Ray that can be ported easily to new platforms. We present experi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: SIGMETRICS
• Authors: Kamen Yotov, Keshav Pingali, Paul Stodghill
• Keywords: Memory Hierarchy, Memory Hierarchy Parameters, Performance Keywords Micro-benchmarks, SIGMETRICS 2005