myCACTI: A new cache design tool for pipelined nanometer caches
myCACTI: A new cache design tool for pipelined nanometer caches
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Date
2006-11-28
Authors
Rodriguez, Samuel
Advisor
Jacob, Bruce
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Abstract
TThe presence of caches in microprocessors has always been one of the most
important techniques in bridging the memory wall, or the speed gap between the
microprocessor and main memory. This importance is continuously increasing
especially as we enter the regime of nanometer process technologies (i.e. 90nm
and below), as industry has favored investing a larger and larger fraction of a
chip.s transistor budget to improving the on-chip cache. This is the case in
practice, as it has proven to be an efficient way to utilize the increasing
number of transistors available with each succeeding technology. Consequently,
it becomes even more important to have cache design tools that give accurate
representations of designs that exist in actual microprocessors.
The prevalent cache design tools that are the most widely used in academe are
CACTI [Wilton1996] and eCACTI [Mamidipaka2004], and these have proven to be very
useful tools not just for cache designers, but also for computer architects.
This dissertation will show that both CACTI and eCACTI still contain major
limitations and even flaws in their design, making them unsuitable for use in
very-deep submicron and nanometer caches, especially pipelined designs. These
limitations and flaws will be discussed in detail.
This dissertation then introduces a new tool, called myCACTI, that addresses all
these limitations and, in addition, introduces major enhancements to the
simulation framework.
This dissertation then demonstrates the use of myCACTI in the cache design
process. Detailed design space explorations are done on multiple cache
configurations to produce pareto optimal curves of the caches to show optimal
implementations. Detailed studies are also performed to characterize the delay
and power dissipation of different cache configurations and implementations.
Finally, future directions to the development of myCACTI are identified to show
possible ways that the tool can be improved in such a way as to allow even more
different kinds of studies to be performed.