On-chip interconnects and instruction steering schemes for clustered microarchitectures

Clustering is an effective microarchitectural technique for reducing the impact of wire delays, the complexity, and the power requirements of microprocessors. In this work, we investigate the design of on-chip interconnection networks for clustered superscalar microarchitectures. This new class of i...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Parcerisa Bundó, Joan Manuel|||0000-0001-5771-8118, Sahuquillo, Julio, González Colás, Antonio María|||0000-0002-0009-0996, Duato, José
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2005
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/100490
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/100490
https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPDS.2005.23
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Multiprocessors
Logic design
Clustered microarchitecture
Intercluster communication
On-chip interconnects
Instruction steering
Complexity
Multiprocessadors
Estructura lògica
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Arquitectura de computadors
Descripción
Sumario:Clustering is an effective microarchitectural technique for reducing the impact of wire delays, the complexity, and the power requirements of microprocessors. In this work, we investigate the design of on-chip interconnection networks for clustered superscalar microarchitectures. This new class of interconnects has demands and characteristics different from traditional multiprocessor networks. In particular, in a clustered microarchitecture, a low intercluster communication latency is essential for high performance. We propose some point-to-point cluster interconnects and new improved instruction steering schemes. The results show that these point-to-point interconnects achieve much better performance than bus-based ones, and that the connectivity of the network together with effective steering schemes are key for high performance. We also show that these interconnects can be built with simple hardware and achieve a performance close to that of an idealized contention-free model.