DOCSLIB.ORG

Superscalar Instruction Dispatch with Exception Handling

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Superscalar Instruction Dispatch with Exception Handling Superscalar Instruction Dispatch With Exception Handling Design and Testing Report Joseph McMahan December 2013 Contents 1 Design 3 1.1 Overview . ............. ............. 3 1.1.1 The Tomasulo Algorithm . ............. 4 1.1.2 Two-Phase Cloc"ing .......... ............. 4 1.1.3 #esolving Data Hazards . ............. ' 1.1.4 (oftware Interface............ ............. + 1.2 High ,evel Design ............. ............. 10 1.3 ,ow ,evel Design ............. ............. 12 1.3.1 Buses . ............. ............. 12 1.3.2 .unctional /nits ............. ............ 13 1.3.3 Completion File ............. ............. 14 1.3.4 Bus !0cles . ............. ............. 17 1.3.' *nstruction Deco&e an& Dispatch . ............. 18 2 Testing 23 2.1 Tests . ............. ............. 23 2.1.1 ,oa& Data2 Ad& ............. ............. 23 2.1.2 #esource Hazard3 Onl0 One (tation Available ......... 24 2.1.3 Multipl0 . ............. ............. 26 2.1.4 #esource Hazard3 Two Instructions o) (ame Type . 26 2.1.' Data Hazar&3 #A5........... ............. 29 2.1.4 Data Hazar&3 5A5 .......... ............. 31 2.1.+ Data Hazar&3 5AR . ............. 31 2.1.1 Memor0 Hazar&3 5AR . ............. 35 2.1.6 #esource Hazard3 No (tations Available ............ 3' 2.1.10 (tall on .ull Completion File . ............ 31 2.1.11 Han&le 89ception............ ............. 40 1 3 Code 43 3.1 Mo&ules . ............. ............. 43 3.1.1 rstation.v . ............. ............. 43 3.1.2 reg.v . ............. ............. 49 3.1.3 fetch.v . ............. ............. 53 3.1.4 store.v . ............. ............. '6 3.1.' mem-unit.v . ............. ............. 63 3.1.4 ID.v . ............. ............. 70 3.1.+ alu.v . ............. ............. 84 3.1.1 alu-unit.v . ............. ............. 14 3.1.6 mult.v . ............. ............. 90 3.1.10 mp-unit.v . ............. ............. 92 3.1.11 cf.v . ............. ............. 64 3.1.12 IMem.v . ............. ............. 107 3.1.13 cpu.v . ............. ............. 110 3.1.14 assemble.p0 . ............. ............. 114 2 Chapter 1 Design 1.1 Overview This report covers the &esign2 implementation2 an& testing of a basic superscalar ! / with exception han&ling. The ! / has a pea" throughput of two instructions per c0cle. The &esign uses the Tomasulo algorithm for parallel execution :see section 1.1.1;. This calls for an instruction &ispatch that &0namicall0 allocates resources an& allows for localize& control logic. There is no state machine governing the ! / actions< each functional unit operates un&er its own control. As long as the required resources are available, the instruction &eco&e unit will &ispatch two instructions ever0 cycle2 allowing the )unctional units to han&le the execution. Naturall02 the instruction deco&e will have to resolve the &ata hazar&s that arise in &ispatching two instructions ever0 cycle. The process for resolving #ea&-After- 5rite :RA5;2 5rite-After-Write :5A5;2 an& 5rite-After-#ead :5AR; hazards for both the register names an& memor0 accesses is covered in section 1.1.3. The functional units consist of an a&&er2 a multiplier2 a fetch unit2 an& a store unit. A completion >le is used to trac" all instructions that have been issued but not 0et retired into the retirement registers. (ection 1.3.3 covers the implementation an& purpose of the completion >le in the system. 3 writes are issued to the memory hierarch0. WAW The problem o) subsequent writes at the same a&&ress is han&led b0 the mem- ory interface alwa0s issuing writes in sequential order. RAW When a rea& comman& is issued b0 the instruction &ispatch an& goes out on an instruction bus, the allocated fetch reservation station chec"s i) the requeste& a&&ress exists in an0 o) the store stations :meaning it belongs to a pen&ing write operation;. *) there are no matches, it latches the a&dress )rom the instruction bus an& signals to the memor0 inter)ace that it has a rea& request rea&0 for the cache. *) there is a match2 it instea& latches the &ata &irectl0 from the store unit2 circumventing the memor0 access entirel0. This metho& not onl0 solves the issues that might arise when one gives strict priorit0 to reads over writes, it actuall0 eliminates the &ela0 )or memor0 access in situations with close rea&-after-write operations. 1.1.4 Software Interface op src/&st a&&r 2 2 28 Table 1.1: 7umber of bits &evoted to each >el& for a loa& or store comman&. op &st src1 src2 :empt0; imm ' 2 2 2 ' 16 Table 1.23 7umber of bits &evoted to each >el& for all AL/ an& multipl0 comman&s. The ! / ta"es 32-bit machine instructions. Tables 1.1.4 an& 1.1.4 show how the 32-bit instructions are &ivi&ed for loa&?store instructions :1.1.4; an& all other instructions :1.1.4;. + operation assembl0 t0pe resource funct a&& a&& 0 00 00 NOR nor 0 00 01 shi)t left logical sll 0 00 10 shi)t right logical srl 0 00 11 multipl0 mult 0 01 00 load lower imme&iate li 0 10 00 load upper immediate lui 0 10 01 store word sw 1 0 n?a load wor& lw 1 1 n?a Table 1.3: *nstruction opco&es. Note that loa& an& store instructions use 2-bit opco&es, while all others use 5-bit opco&es. ,oa& an& store comman&s use a separate instruction format from all other com- man&s; these comman&s use a 2-bit opco&e, a 2-bit register number2 an& a 28-bit wor& ad&ress. :The wor& a&&ress is later pa&&ed with two zeros to form a 30-bit b0te a&&ress.; All other instructions use a '-bit opco&e, 2-bits each )or a &estination register an& two source registers, an& a 16-bit imme&iate >el&. The immediate >el& allows for values speci>e& in a program to be loa&ed into registers. Table 1.1.4 shows how all opco&es are &ivi&e&. The >rst bit in&icates the in- struction type: memory or non-memory. @ariable-length opco&es are used an& the >rst bit in&icates how man0 bits to expect for the instruction. 1 is used for memory operations, 0 for all others. .or memor0 operations, the secon& bit indicates a loa& or a store operation. .or non-memory operations :all instructions e9cept loa&-wor& an& store-word;2 the remaining four bits give the rest o) the instruction. The secon& an& thir& bit make up the resource i&enti>er< an instruction can possibl0 use the AL/2 the multiplier2 or the register >le. A &esignate& >el& for resource t0pe ma"es it easier )or the instruction &eco&e to "now i) a resource hazard exists between two instructions. The >nal two bits give the function code, which speci>es which operation the )unctional unit is to perform. The multiplier has onl0 one possible operation. The register >le has two3 loa& lower imme&iate :load the imme&iate >el& into the lower 14 bits) an& loa& 1 1.2 High eve! Design The &esign of the ! / is bro"en into three major components: the instruction &eco&e/&ispatch unit :*D;2 the completion >le :!.;2 an& a set of )unctional units :./;. The system contains two instruction buses an& >ve &ata buses. 8ach bus has a single owner with write privileges. Figure 1.2 shows the bloc"s an& buses in the high-level &esign. The two instruction buses are output b0 the ID. At pea" throughput2 each has a new instruction every cycle. Each register in the #. monitors the B&stC :&estination; >el& o) the instruction buses; i) a register >n&s that its tag matches an instructionDs &estination >el&2 then it latches the allocate& station for that instruction2 which tells it what &ata to wait for. When &ata shows up with that tag attached2 the register latches it. The registers also monitor the “srcC :source) >el&s of each instruction. *) a tag match is foun& :i.e.2 a register is use& as an operan&;2 the register signals to the #. controller that it needs to output its contents onto a bus. Ever0 functional unit monitors the instruction buses. The reservation stations in each function unit compare their tags to the tag in the “allocate& stationC >el& of each instruction. *) it matches, the station latches the two source tags :which tell it what &ata to wait for; an& the function tag. When all operan&s have been acquired2 the functional unit executes the instruction2 an& puts it out on a &ata bus. The ALU, multiplier2 an& fetch unit all have ownership of one &ata bus. The completion >le has two :since multiple registers frequentl0 nee& to output their con- tents at the same time). The store unit never has &ata to output2 as it simple sen&s store requests to the memor0 controller. Ever0 functional unit �as well as the #. an& ID; monitor the tags on all >ve &ata buses. Ever0 bus is ta"en as an input into ever0 bloc" in the &esign. ,ocali%ed control in each ./ han&les how to execute each instruction2 meaning that the s0stem-wi&e control is minimal. 7o state machine is used for the ! U. The ID &ispatches instructions every cycle, an& the )unctional units han&le the execution. 10 Figure 1.13 High-level &esign o) the superscalar ! /. Onl0 the connections control- ling bus contents are &rawn here; however, every unit in the &esign takes as input ever0 bus. 11 Figure 1.23 Each functional unit has a reservation station o) two entries, which latch instructions an& collect the &ata needed for operations. 5hen operan& &ata are rea&02 the functional unit executes the &esired operation. 1.3.2 "unctiona! $nits The ! / has four functional units: a four-function ALU, a multiplier2 a fetch unit :for memor0 rea&s)2 an& a store unit :for memor0 writes).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • IEEE Paper Template in A4
    Vasantha.N.S. et al, International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing, Vol.6 Issue.6, June- 2017, pg. 302-306 Available Online at www.ijcsmc.com International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing A Monthly Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology ISSN 2320–088X IMPACT FACTOR: 6.017 IJCSMC, Vol. 6, Issue. 6, June 2017, pg.302 – 306 Enhancing Performance in Multiple Execution Unit Architecture using Tomasulo Algorithm Vasantha.N.S.1, Meghana Kulkarni2 ¹Department of VLSI and Embedded Systems, Centre for PG Studies, VTU Belagavi, India ²Associate Professor Department of VLSI and Embedded Systems, Centre for PG Studies, VTU Belagavi, India 1 [email protected] ; 2 [email protected] Abstract— Tomasulo’s algorithm is a computer architecture hardware algorithm for dynamic scheduling of instructions that allows out-of-order execution, designed to efficiently utilize multiple execution units. It was developed by Robert Tomasulo at IBM. The major innovations of Tomasulo’s algorithm include register renaming in hardware. It also uses the concept of reservation stations for all execution units. A common data bus (CDB) on which computed values broadcast to all reservation stations that may need them is also present. The algorithm allows for improved parallel execution of instructions that would otherwise stall under the use of other earlier algorithms such as scoreboarding. Keywords— Reservation Station, Register renaming, common data bus, multiple execution unit, register file I. INTRODUCTION The instructions in any program may be executed in any of the 2 ways namely sequential order and the other is the data flow order. The sequential order is the one in which the instructions are executed one after the other but in reality this flow is very rare in programs.
    [Show full text]
  • Computer Science 246 Computer Architecture Spring 2010 Harvard University
    Computer Science 246 Computer Architecture Spring 2010 Harvard University Instructor: Prof. David Brooks [email protected] Dynamic Branch Prediction, Speculation, and Multiple Issue Computer Science 246 David Brooks Lecture Outline • Tomasulo’s Algorithm Review (3.1-3.3) • Pointer-Based Renaming (MIPS R10000) • Dynamic Branch Prediction (3.4) • Other Front-end Optimizations (3.5) – Branch Target Buffers/Return Address Stack Computer Science 246 David Brooks Tomasulo Review • Reservation Stations – Distribute RAW hazard detection – Renaming eliminates WAW hazards – Buffering values in Reservation Stations removes WARs – Tag match in CDB requires many associative compares • Common Data Bus – Achilles heal of Tomasulo – Multiple writebacks (multiple CDBs) expensive • Load/Store reordering – Load address compared with store address in store buffer Computer Science 246 David Brooks Tomasulo Organization From Mem FP Op FP Registers Queue Load Buffers Load1 Load2 Load3 Load4 Load5 Store Load6 Buffers Add1 Add2 Mult1 Add3 Mult2 Reservation To Mem Stations FP adders FP multipliers Common Data Bus (CDB) Tomasulo Review 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 LD F0, 0(R1) Iss M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 Wb MUL F4, F0, F2 Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Ex Ex Ex Ex Wb SD 0(R1), F0 Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss M1 M2 M3 Wb SUBI R1, R1, 8 Iss Ex Wb BNEZ R1, Loop Iss Ex Wb LD F0, 0(R1) Iss Iss Iss Iss M Wb MUL F4, F0, F2 Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Ex Ex Ex Ex Wb SD 0(R1), F0 Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss Iss M1 M2
    [Show full text]
  • Dynamic Scheduling
    Dynamically-Scheduled Machines ! • In a Statically-Scheduled machine, the compiler schedules all instructions to avoid data-hazards: the ID unit may require that instructions can issue together without hazards, otherwise the ID unit inserts stalls until the hazards clear! • This section will deal with Dynamically-Scheduled machines, where hardware- based techniques are used to detect are remove avoidable data-hazards automatically, to allow ‘out-of-order’ execution, and improve performance! • Dynamic scheduling used in the Pentium III and 4, the AMD Athlon, the MIPS R10000, the SUN Ultra-SPARC III; the IBM Power chips, the IBM/Motorola PowerPC, the HP Alpha 21264, the Intel Dual-Core and Quad-Core processors! • In contrast, static multiple-issue with compiler-based scheduling is used in the Intel IA-64 Itanium architectures! • In 2007, the dual-core and quad-core Intel processors use the Pentium 5 family of dynamically-scheduled processors. The Itanium has had a hard time gaining market share.! Ch. 6, Advanced Pipelining-DYNAMIC, slide 1! © Ted Szymanski! Dynamic Scheduling - the Idea ! (class text - pg 168, 171, 5th ed.)" !DIVD ! !F0, F2, F4! ADDD ! !F10, F0, F8 !- data hazard, stall issue for 23 cc! SUBD ! !F12, F8, F14 !- SUBD inherits 23 cc of stalls! • ADDD depends on DIVD; in a static scheduled machine, the ID unit detects the hazard and causes the basic pipeline to stall for 23 cc! • The SUBD instruction cannot execute because the pipeline has stalled, even though SUBD does not logically depend upon either previous instruction! • suppose the machine architecture was re-organized to let the SUBD and subsequent instructions “bypass” the previous stalled instruction (the ADDD) and proceed with its execution -> we would allow “out-of-order” execution! • however, out-of-order execution would allow out-of-order completion, which may allow RW (Read-Write) and WW (Write-Write) data hazards ! • a RW and WW hazard occurs when the reads/writes complete in the wrong order, destroying the data.
    [Show full text]
  • United States Patent (19) 11 Patent Number: 5,680,565 Glew Et Al
    USOO568.0565A United States Patent (19) 11 Patent Number: 5,680,565 Glew et al. 45 Date of Patent: Oct. 21, 1997 (54) METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR Diefendorff, "Organization of the Motorola 88110 Super PERFORMING PAGE TABLE WALKS INA scalar RISC Microprocessor.” IEEE Micro, Apr. 1996, pp. MCROPROCESSOR CAPABLE OF 40-63. PROCESSING SPECULATIVE Yeager, Kenneth C. "The MIPS R10000 Superscalar Micro INSTRUCTIONS processor.” IEEE Micro, Apr. 1996, pp. 28-40 Apr. 1996. 75 Inventors: Andy Glew, Hillsboro; Glenn Hinton; Smotherman et al. "Instruction Scheduling for the Motorola Haitham Akkary, both of Portland, all 88.110" Microarchitecture 1993 International Symposium, of Oreg. pp. 257-262. Circello et al., “The Motorola 68060 Microprocessor.” 73) Assignee: Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif. COMPCON IEEE Comp. Soc. Int'l Conf., Spring 1993, pp. 73-78. 21 Appl. No.: 176,363 "Superscalar Microprocessor Design" by Mike Johnson, Advanced Micro Devices, Prentice Hall, 1991. 22 Filed: Dec. 30, 1993 Popescu, et al., "The Metaflow Architecture.” IEEE Micro, (51) Int. C. G06F 12/12 pp. 10-13 and 63–73, Jun. 1991. 52 U.S. Cl. ........................... 395/415: 395/800; 395/383 Primary Examiner-David K. Moore 58) Field of Search .................................. 395/400, 375, Assistant Examiner-Kevin Verbrugge 395/800, 414, 415, 421.03 Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & 56 References Cited Zafiman U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 57 ABSTRACT 5,136,697 8/1992 Johnson .................................. 395/586 A page table walk is performed in response to a data 5,226,126 7/1993 McFarland et al. 395/.394 translation lookaside buffer miss based on a speculative 5,230,068 7/1993 Van Dyke et al.
    [Show full text]
  • Identifying Bottlenecks in a Multithreaded Superscalar
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by KITopen Identifying Bottlenecks in a Multithreaded Sup erscalar Micropro cessor Ulrich Sigmund and Theo Ungerer VIONA DevelopmentGmbH Karlstr D Karlsruhe Germany University of Karlsruhe Dept of Computer Design and Fault Tolerance D Karlsruhe Germany Abstract This pap er presents a multithreaded sup erscalar pro cessor that p ermits several threads to issue instructions to the execution units of a wide sup erscalar pro cessor in a single cycle Instructions can simul taneously b e issued from up to threads with a total issue bandwidth of instructions p er cycle Our results show that the threaded issue pro cessor reaches a throughput of instructions p er cycle Intro duction Current micropro cessors utilize instructionlevel parallelism by a deep pro cessor pip eline and by the sup erscalar technique that issues up to four instructions p er cycle from a single thread VLSItechnology will allow future generations of micropro cessors to exploit instructionlevel parallelism up to instructions p er cycle or more However the instructionlevel parallelism found in a conventional instruction stream is limited The solution is the additional utilization of more coarsegrained parallelism The main approaches are the multipro cessor chip and the multithreaded pro ces pro cessors on a sor The multipro cessor chip integrates two or more complete single chip Therefore every unit of a pro cessor is duplicated and used indep en dently of its copies on the chip
    [Show full text]
  • Advanced Processor Designs
    Advanced processor designs We’ve only scratched the surface of CPU design. Today we’ll briefly introduce some of the big ideas and big words behind modern processors by looking at two example CPUs. —The Motorola PowerPC, used in Apple computers and many embedded systems, is a good example of state-of-the-art RISC technologies. —The Intel Itanium is a more radical design intended for the higher-end systems market. April 9, 2003 ©2001-2003 Howard Huang 1 General ways to make CPUs faster You can improve the chip manufacturing technology. — Smaller CPUs can run at a higher clock rates, since electrons have to travel a shorter distance. Newer chips use a “0.13µm process,” and this will soon shrink down to 0.09µm. — Using different materials, such as copper instead of aluminum, can improve conductivity and also make things faster. You can also improve your CPU design, like we’ve been doing in CS232. — One of the most important ideas is parallel computation—executing several parts of a program at the same time. — Being able to execute more instructions at a time results in a higher instruction throughput, and a faster execution time. April 9, 2003 Advanced processor designs 2 Pipelining is parallelism We’ve already seen parallelism in detail! A pipelined processor executes many instructions at the same time. All modern processors use pipelining, because most programs will execute faster on a pipelined CPU without any programmer intervention. Today we’ll discuss some more advanced techniques to help you get the most out of your pipeline. April 9, 2003 Advanced processor designs 3 Motivation for some advanced ideas Our pipelined datapath only supports integer operations, and we assumed the ALU had about a 2ns delay.
    [Show full text]
  • Computer Architecture Out-Of-Order Execution
    Computer Architecture Out-of-order Execution By Yoav Etsion With acknowledgement to Dan Tsafrir, Avi Mendelson, Lihu Rappoport, and Adi Yoaz 1 Computer Architecture 2013– Out-of-Order Execution The need for speed: Superscalar • Remember our goal: minimize CPU Time CPU Time = duration of clock cycle × CPI × IC • So far we have learned that in order to Minimize clock cycle ⇒ add more pipe stages Minimize CPI ⇒ utilize pipeline Minimize IC ⇒ change/improve the architecture • Why not make the pipeline deeper and deeper? Beyond some point, adding more pipe stages doesn’t help, because Control/data hazards increase, and become costlier • (Recall that in a pipelined CPU, CPI=1 only w/o hazards) • So what can we do next? Reduce the CPI by utilizing ILP (instruction level parallelism) We will need to duplicate HW for this purpose… 2 Computer Architecture 2013– Out-of-Order Execution A simple superscalar CPU • Duplicates the pipeline to accommodate ILP (IPC > 1) ILP=instruction-level parallelism • Note that duplicating HW in just one pipe stage doesn’t help e.g., when having 2 ALUs, the bottleneck moves to other stages IF ID EXE MEM WB • Conclusion: Getting IPC > 1 requires to fetch/decode/exe/retire >1 instruction per clock: IF ID EXE MEM WB 3 Computer Architecture 2013– Out-of-Order Execution Example: Pentium Processor • Pentium fetches & decodes 2 instructions per cycle • Before register file read, decide on pairing Can the two instructions be executed in parallel? (yes/no) u-pipe IF ID v-pipe • Pairing decision is based… On data
    [Show full text]
  • CSE 586 Computer Architecture Lecture 4
    Highlights from last week CSE 586 Computer Architecture • ILP: where can the compiler optimize – Loop unrolling and software pipelining – Speculative execution (we’ll see predication today) Lecture 4 • ILP: Dynamic scheduling in a single issue machine – Scoreboard Jean-Loup Baer – Tomasulo’s algorithm http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/586/00sp CSE 586 Spring 00 1 CSE 586 Spring 00 2 Highlights from last week (c’ed) -- Highlights from last week (c’ed) – Scoreboard Tomasulo’s algorithm • The scoreboard keeps a record of all data dependencies • Decentralized control • The scoreboard keeps a record of all functional unit • Use of reservation stations to buffer and/or rename occupancies registers (hence gets rid of WAW and WAR hazards) • The scoreboard decides if an instruction can be issued • Results –and their names– are broadcast to reservations • The scoreboard decides if an instruction can store its result stations and register file • Implementation-wise, scoreboard keeps track of which • Instructions are issued in order but can be dispatched, registers are used as sources and destinations and which executed and completed out-of-order functional units use them CSE 586 Spring 00 3 CSE 586 Spring 00 4 Highlights from last week (c’ed) Multiple Issue Alternatives • Register renaming: avoids WAW and WAR hazards • Superscalar (hardware detects conflicts) • Is performed at “decode” time to rename the result register – Statically scheduled (in order dispatch and hence execution; cf DEC Alpha 21164) • Two basic implementation schemes – Dynamically scheduled (in order issue, out of order dispatch and – Have a separate physical register file execution; cf MIPS 10000, IBM Power PC 620 and Intel Pentium – Use of reorder buffer and reservation stations (cf.
    [Show full text]
  • MIPS Architecture with Tomasulo Algorithm [12]
    CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY NORTHRIDGE TOMASULO ARCHITECTURE BASED MIPS PROCESSOR A graduate project submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirement Of the degree of Master of Science In Electrical Engineering By Sameer S Pandit May 2014 The graduate project of Sameer Pandit is approved by: ______________________________________ ____________ Dr. Ali Amini, Ph.D. Date _______________________________________ ____________ Dr. Shahnam Mirzaei, Ph.D. Date _______________________________________ ____________ Dr. Ramin Roosta, Ph.D., Chair Date California State University Northridge ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my gratitude towards all the members of the project committee and would like to thank them for their continuous support and mentoring me for every step that I have taken towards the completion of this project. Dr. Roosta, for his guidance, Dr. Shahnam for his ideas, and Dr. Ali Amini for his utmost support. I would also like to thank my family and friends for their love, care and support through all the tough times during my graduation. iii Table of Contents SIGNATURE PAGE .......................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................. iii LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • In-Line Interrupt Handling and Lock-Up Free Translation Lookaside Buffers (Tlbs)
    IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTERS, VOL. 55, NO. 5, MAY 2006 1 In-Line Interrupt Handling and Lock-Up Free Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs) Aamer Jaleel, Student Member, IEEE, and Bruce Jacob, Member, IEEE Abstract—The effects of the general-purpose precise interrupt mechanisms in use for the past few decades have received very little attention. When modern out-of-order processors handle interrupts precisely, they typically begin by flushing the pipeline to make the CPU available to execute handler instructions. In doing so, the CPU ends up flushing many instructions that have been brought in to the reorder buffer. In particular, these instructions may have reached a very deep stage in the pipeline—representing significant work that is wasted. In addition, an overhead of several cycles and wastage of energy (per exception detected) can be expected in refetching and reexecuting the instructions flushed. This paper concentrates on improving the performance of precisely handling software managed translation look-aside buffer (TLB) interrupts, one of the most frequently occurring interrupts. The paper presents a novel method of in-lining the interrupt handler within the reorder buffer. Since the first level interrupt-handlers of TLBs are usually small, they could potentially fit in the reorder buffer along with the user-level code already there. In doing so, the instructions that would otherwise be flushed from the pipe need not be refetched and reexecuted. Additionally, it allows for instructions independent of the exceptional instruction to continue to execute in parallel with the handler code. By in-lining the TLB interrupt handler, this provides lock-up free TLBs.
    [Show full text]
  • Improving the Precise Interrupt Mechanism of Software- Managed TLB Miss Handlers
    Improving the Precise Interrupt Mechanism of Software- Managed TLB Miss Handlers Aamer Jaleel and Bruce Jacob Electrical & Computer Engineering University of Maryland at College Park {ajaleel,blj}@eng.umd.edu Abstract. The effects of the general-purpose precise interrupt mechanisms in use for the past few decades have received very little attention. When modern out-of-order processors handle interrupts precisely, they typically begin by flushing the pipeline to make the CPU available to execute handler instructions. In doing so, the CPU ends up flushing many instructions that have been brought in to the reorder buffer. In par- ticular, many of these instructions have reached a very deep stage in the pipeline - representing significant work that is wasted. In addition, an overhead of several cycles can be expected in re-fetching and re-executing these instructions. This paper concentrates on improving the performance of precisely handling software managed translation lookaside buffer (TLB) interrupts, one of the most frequently occurring interrupts. This paper presents a novel method of in-lining the interrupt handler within the reorder buffer. Since the first level interrupt-handlers of TLBs are usually small, they could potentially fit in the reorder buffer along with the user-level code already there. In doing so, the instructions that would otherwise be flushed from the pipe need not be re-fetched and re-executed. Additionally, it allows for instructions independent of the exceptional instruction to continue to execute in parallel with the handler code. We simulate two different schemes of in-lining the interrupt on a pro- cessor with a 4-way out-of-order core similar to the Alpha 21264.
    [Show full text]
  • Identifying Bottlenecks in a Multithreaded Superscalar
    Identifying Bottlenecks in a Multithreaded Sup erscalar Micropro cessor Ulrich Sigmund and Theo Ungerer VIONA DevelopmentGmbH Karlstr D Karlsruhe Germany University of Karlsruhe Dept of Computer Design and Fault Tolerance D Karlsruhe Germany Abstract This pap er presents a multithreaded sup erscalar pro cessor that p ermits several threads to issue instructions to the execution units of a wide sup erscalar pro cessor in a single cycle Instructions can simul taneously b e issued from up to threads with a total issue bandwidth of instructions p er cycle Our results show that the threaded issue pro cessor reaches a throughput of instructions p er cycle Intro duction Current micropro cessors utilize instructionlevel parallelism by a deep pro cessor pip eline and by the sup erscalar technique that issues up to four instructions p er cycle from a single thread VLSItechnology will allow future generations of micropro cessors to exploit instructionlevel parallelism up to instructions p er cycle or more However the instructionlevel parallelism found in a conventional instruction stream is limited The solution is the additional utilization of more coarsegrained parallelism The main approaches are the multipro cessor chip and the multithreaded pro ces pro cessors on a sor The multipro cessor chip integrates two or more complete single chip Therefore every unit of a pro cessor is duplicated and used indep en dently of its copies on the chip In contrast the multithreaded pro cessor stores multiple contexts in dierent register sets on the
    [Show full text]