Techniques for Efficient Processing in Runahead Execution Engines

Runahead execution is a technique that improves processor performance by pre-executing the running application instead of stalling the processor when a long-latency cache miss occurs. Previous research has shown that this technique significantly improves processor performance. However, the efficiency of runahead execution, which directly affects the dynamic energy consumed by a runahead processor, has not been explored. A runahead processor executes significantly more instructions than a traditional outof-order processor, sometimes without providing any performance benefit, which makes it inefficient. In this paper, we describe the causes of inefficiency in runahead execution and propose techniques to make a runahead processor more efficient, thereby reducing its energy consumption and possibly increasing its performance. Our analyses and results provide two major insights: (1) the efficiency of runahead execution can be greatly improved with simple techniques that reduce the ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ISCA
• Authors: Onur Mutlu, Hyesoon Kim, Yale N. Patt
• Keywords: Hardware, ISCA 2005, Processor Performance, Runahead Execution, Runahead Processor