William Stallings Computer Organization and Architecture 8th Edition Chapter 4 Cache Memory

Characteristics
Location Capacity Unit of transfer Access method Performance Physical type Physical characteristics Organisation

Location
CPU Internal External

Capacity
Word size
The natural unit of organisation

Number of words
or Bytes

Unit of Transfer
Internal
Usually governed by data bus width

External
Usually a block which is much larger than a word

Addressable unit
Smallest location which can be uniquely addressed Word internally Cluster on M$ disks

Access Methods (1)

Sequential
Start at the beginning and read through in order Access time depends on location of data and previous location e.g. tape

Direct
Individual blocks have unique address Access is by jumping to vicinity plus sequential search Access time depends on location and previous location e.g. disk

Access Methods (2)

Random
Individual addresses identify locations exactly Access time is independent of location or previous access e.g. RAM

Associative
Data is located by a comparison with contents of a portion of the store Access time is independent of location or previous access e.g. cache

Memory Hierarchy
Registers
In CPU

Internal or Main memory

May include one or more levels of cache RAM

External memory
Backing store

Memory Hierarchy - Diagram

Memory Hierarchy

Performance
Access time
Time between presenting the address and getting the valid data

Memory Cycle time

Time may be required for the memory to recover before next access Cycle time is access + recovery

Transfer Rate
Rate at which data can be moved

Physical Types
Semiconductor
RAM

Magnetic
Disk & Tape

Optical
CD & DVD

Others
Bubble Hologram

Physical Characteristics
Decay Volatility Erasable Power consumption

Organisation
Physical arrangement of bits into words Not always obvious e.g. interleaved

The Bottom Line

How much?
Capacity

How fast?
Time is money

How expensive?

Hierarchy List
Registers L1 Cache L2 Cache Main memory Disk cache Disk Optical Tape

So you want fast?

It is possible to build a computer which uses only static RAM (see later) This would be very fast This would need no cache
How can you cache cache?

This would cost a very large amount

Locality of Reference
During the course of the execution of a program, memory references tend to cluster e.g. loops

Cache
Small amount of fast memory Sits between normal main memory and CPU May be located on CPU chip or module

Cache and Main Memory

Cache/Main Memory Structure

Cache operation overview

CPU requests contents of memory location Check cache for this data If present, get from cache (fast) If not present, read required block from main memory to cache Then deliver from cache to CPU Cache includes tags to identify which block of main memory is in each cache slot

Cache Read Operation - Flowchart

Cache Design
Addressing Size Mapping Function Replacement Algorithm Write Policy Block Size Number of Caches

Cache Addressing
Where does cache sit?
Between processor and virtual memory management unit Between MMU and main memory

Logical cache (virtual cache) stores data using virtual addresses

Processor accesses cache directly, not thorough physical cache Cache access faster, before MMU address translation Virtual addresses use same address space for different applications
Must flush cache on each context switch

Physical cache stores data using main memory physical addresses

Size does matter

Cost
More cache is expensive

Speed
More cache is faster (up to a point) Checking cache for data takes time

Typical Cache Organization

Comparison of Cache Sizes

Processor IBM 360/85 PDP-11/70 VAX 11/780 IBM 3033 IBM 3090 Intel 80486 Pentium PowerPC 601 PowerPC 620 PowerPC G4 IBM S/390 G4 IBM S/390 G6 Pentium 4 IBM SP CRAY MTAb Itanium SGI Origin 2001 Itanium 2 IBM POWER5 CRAY XD-1 Type Mainframe Minicomputer Minicomputer Mainframe Mainframe PC PC PC PC PC/server Mainframe Mainframe PC/server High-end server/ supercomputer Supercomputer PC/server High-end server PC/server High-end server Supercomputer Year of Introduction 1968 1975 1978 1978 1985 1989 1993 1993 1996 1999 1997 1999 2000 2000 2000 2001 2001 2002 2003 2004 L1 cache 16 to 32 KB 1 KB 16 KB 64 KB 128 to 256 KB 8 KB 8 KB/8 KB 32 KB 32 KB/32 KB 32 KB/32 KB 32 KB 256 KB 8 KB/8 KB 64 KB/32 KB 8 KB 16 KB/16 KB 32 KB/32 KB 32 KB 64 KB 64 KB/64 KB L2 cache 256 to 512 KB 256 KB to 1 MB 256 KB 8 MB 256 KB 8 MB 2 MB 96 KB 4 MB 256 KB 1.9 MB 1MB L3 cache 2 MB 2 MB 4 MB 6 MB 36 MB

Mapping Function
Cache of 64kByte Cache block of 4 bytes
i.e. cache is 16k (214) lines of 4 bytes

16MBytes main memory 24 bit address

(224=16M)

Direct Mapping
Each block of main memory maps to only one cache line
i.e. if a block is in cache, it must be in one specific place

Address is in two parts Least Significant w bits identify unique word Most Significant s bits specify one memory block The MSBs are split into a cache line field r and a tag of s-r (most significant)

Direct Mapping Address Structure

Tag s-r 8 Line or Slot r 14 Word w 2

24 bit address 2 bit word identifier (4 byte block) 22 bit block identifier
8 bit tag (=22-14) 14 bit slot or line

No two blocks in the same line have the same Tag field Check contents of cache by finding line and checking Tag

Direct Mapping from Cache to Main Memory

Direct Mapping Cache Line Table Cache line Main Memory blocks held

0
1 m-1

0, m, 2m, 3m2s-m
1,m+1, 2m+12s-m+1

m-1, 2m-1,3m-12s-1

Direct Mapping Cache Organization

Direct Mapping Example

Direct Mapping Summary

Address length = (s + w) bits Number of addressable units = 2s+w words or bytes Block size = line size = 2w words or bytes Number of blocks in main memory = 2s+w/2w = 2s Number of lines in cache = m = 2r Size of tag = (s r) bits

Direct Mapping pros & cons

Simple Inexpensive Fixed location for given block
If a program accesses 2 blocks that map to the same line repeatedly, cache misses are very high

Victim Cache
Lower miss penalty Remember what was discarded
Already fetched Use again with little penalty

Fully associative 4 to 16 cache lines Between direct mapped L1 cache and next memory level

Associative Mapping
A main memory block can load into any line of cache Memory address is interpreted as tag and word Tag uniquely identifies block of memory Every lines tag is examined for a match Cache searching gets expensive

Associative Mapping from Cache to Main Memory

Fully Associative Cache Organization

Associative Mapping Example

Associative Mapping Address Structure

Tag 22 bit

Word 2 bit

22 bit tag stored with each 32 bit block of data Compare tag field with tag entry in cache to check for hit Least significant 2 bits of address identify which 16 bit word is required from 32 bit data block e.g.
Address FFFFFC Tag Data FFFFFC24682468 Cache line 3FFF

Associative Mapping Summary

Address length = (s + w) bits Number of addressable units = 2s+w words or bytes Block size = line size = 2w words or bytes Number of blocks in main memory = 2s+w/2w = 2s Number of lines in cache = undetermined Size of tag = s bits

Set Associative Mapping

Cache is divided into a number of sets Each set contains a number of lines A given block maps to any line in a given set
e.g. Block B can be in any line of set i

e.g. 2 lines per set

2 way associative mapping A given block can be in one of 2 lines in only one set

Set Associative Mapping Example 13 bit set number Block number in main memory is modulo 213 000000, 00A000, 00B000, 00C000 map to same set

Mapping From Main Memory to Cache: v Associative

Mapping From Main Memory to Cache: k-way Associative

K-Way Set Associative Cache

Organization

Set Associative Mapping Address Structure

Tag 9 bit Set 13 bit Word 2 bit

Use set field to determine cache set to look in Compare tag field to see if we have a hit e.g
Address number 1FF 7FFC 001 7FFC Tag Data Set

1FF 001

12345678 1FFF 11223344 1FFF

Two Way Set Associative Mapping Example

Set Associative Mapping Summary

Address length = (s + w) bits Number of addressable units = 2s+w words or bytes Block size = line size = 2w words or bytes Number of blocks in main memory = 2d Number of lines in set = k Number of sets = v = 2d Number of lines in cache = kv = k * 2d Size of tag = (s d) bits

Direct and Set Associative Cache Performance Differences

Significant up to at least 64kB for 2-way Difference between 2-way and 4-way at 4kB much less than 4kB to 8kB Cache complexity increases with associativity Not justified against increasing cache to 8kB or 16kB Above 32kB gives no improvement (simulation results)

Figure 4.16 Varying Associativity over Cache Size

1.0

0.9
0.8 0.7

Hit ratio

0.6
0.5 0.4

0.3
0.2 0.1

0.0 1k 2k 4k 8k 16k 32k 64k 128k 256k 512k 1M

Cache size (bytes)
direct 2-way 4-way 8-way 16-way

Replacement Algorithms (1) Direct mapping No choice Each block only maps to one line Replace that line

Replacement Algorithms (2) Associative & Set Associative Hardware implemented algorithm (speed) Least Recently used (LRU) e.g. in 2 way set associative
Which of the 2 block is lru?

First in first out (FIFO)

replace block that has been in cache longest

Least frequently used

replace block which has had fewest hits

Random

Write Policy
Must not overwrite a cache block unless main memory is up to date Multiple CPUs may have individual caches I/O may address main memory directly

Write through
All writes go to main memory as well as cache Multiple CPUs can monitor main memory traffic to keep local (to CPU) cache up to date Lots of traffic Slows down writes

Remember bogus write through caches!

Write back
Updates initially made in cache only Update bit for cache slot is set when update occurs If block is to be replaced, write to main memory only if update bit is set Other caches get out of sync I/O must access main memory through cache N.B. 15% of memory references are writes

Line Size
Retrieve not only desired word but a number of adjacent words as well Increased block size will increase hit ratio at first Hit ratio will decreases as block becomes even bigger
the principle of locality

Larger blocks

Probability of using newly fetched information becomes less than probability of reusing replaced Reduce number of blocks that fit in cache Data overwritten shortly after being fetched Each additional word is less local so less likely to be needed

No definitive optimum value has been found 8 to 64 bytes seems reasonable For HPC systems, 64- and 128-byte most common

Multilevel Caches
High logic density enables caches on chip
Faster than bus access Frees bus for other transfers

Common to use both on and off chip cache

L1 on chip, L2 off chip in static RAM L2 access much faster than DRAM or ROM L2 often uses separate data path L2 may now be on chip Resulting in L3 cache
Bus access or now on chip

Hit Ratio (L1 & L2) For 8 kbytes and 16 kbyte L1

Unified v Split Caches

One cache for data and instructions or two, one for data and one for instructions Advantages of unified cache
Higher hit rate
Balances load of instruction and data fetch Only one cache to design & implement

Advantages of split cache

Eliminates cache contention between instruction fetch/decode unit and execution unit
Important in pipelining

Pentium 4 Cache
80386 no on chip cache 80486 8k using 16 byte lines and four way set associative organization Pentium (all versions) two on chip L1 caches
Data & instructions

Pentium III L3 cache added off chip Pentium 4

L1 caches
8k bytes 64 byte lines four way set associative

L2 cache
Feeding both L1 caches 256k 128 byte lines 8 way set associative

L3 cache on chip

Intel Cache Evolution

Problem External memory slower than the system bus. Solution Add external cache using faster memory technology. Move external cache on-chip, operating at the same speed as the processor. Processor on which feature first appears 386

Increased processor speed results in external bus becoming a bottleneck for cache access.

486

Internal cache is rather small, due to limited space on chip Contention occurs when both the Instruction Prefetcher and the Execution Unit simultaneously require access to the cache. In that case, the Prefetcher is stalled while the Execution Units data access takes place.

Add external L2 cache using faster technology than main memory

Create separate data and instruction caches.

486

Pentium

Increased processor speed results in external bus becoming a bottleneck for L2 cache access.

Create separate back-side bus that runs at higher speed than the main (front-side) external bus. The BSB is dedicated to the L2 cache. Move L2 cache on to the processor chip.

Pentium Pro

Pentium II Pentium III Pentium 4

Some applications deal with massive databases and must have rapid access to large amounts of data. The on-chip caches are too small.

Add external L3 cache. Move L3 cache on-chip.

Pentium 4 Block Diagram

Pentium 4 Core Processor

Fetch/Decode Unit
Fetches instructions from L2 cache Decode into micro-ops Store micro-ops in L1 cache

Out of order execution logic

Schedules micro-ops Based on data dependence and resources May speculatively execute

Execution units
Execute micro-ops Data from L1 cache Results in registers

Memory subsystem
L2 cache and systems bus

Pentium 4 Design Reasoning

Decodes instructions into RISC like micro-ops before L1 cache Micro-ops fixed length
Superscalar pipelining and scheduling

Pentium instructions long & complex Performance improved by separating decoding from scheduling & pipelining
(More later ch14)

Data cache is write back

Can be configured to write through

L1 cache controlled by 2 bits in register

CD = cache disable NW = not write through 2 instructions to invalidate (flush) cache and write back then invalidate

L2 and L3 8-way set-associative

Line size 128 bytes

ARM Cache Features

Core Cache Type Cache Size (kB) Cache Line Size (words) Associativity Location Write Buffer Size (words)

ARM720T

Unified

4-way

Logical

ARM920T ARM926EJ-S

Split Split

16/16 D/I 4-128/4-128 D/I

8 8

64-way 4-way

Logical Logical

16 16

ARM1022E ARM1026EJ-S

Split Split

16/16 D/I 4-128/4-128 D/I

8 8

64-way 4-way

Logical Logical

16 8

Intel StrongARM

Split

16/16 D/I

32-way

Logical

32

Intel Xscale ARM1136-JF-S

Split Split

32/32 D/I 4-64/4-64 D/I

8 8

32-way 4-way

Logical Physical

32 32

ARM Cache Organization

Small FIFO write buffer
Enhances memory write performance Between cache and main memory Small c.f. cache Data put in write buffer at processor clock speed Processor continues execution External write in parallel until empty If buffer full, processor stalls Data in write buffer not available until written
So keep buffer small

ARM Cache and Write Buffer Organization

Internet Sources
Manufacturer sites
Intel ARM

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