ARC: DVFS-Aware Asymmetric-Retention STT-RAM Caches for Energy-Efficient Multicore Processors

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Gajaria, Dhruv, Adegbija, Tosiron
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866917736189263872
author Gajaria, Dhruv
Adegbija, Tosiron
author_facet Gajaria, Dhruv
Adegbija, Tosiron
contents Relaxed retention (or volatile) spin-transfer torque RAM (STT-RAM) has been widely studied as a way to reduce STT-RAM's write energy and latency overheads. Given a relaxed retention time STT-RAM level one (L1) cache, we analyze the impacts of dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) -- a common optimization in modern processors -- on STT-RAM L1 cache design. Our analysis reveals that, apart from the fact that different applications may require different retention times, the clock frequency, which is typically ignored in most STT-RAM studies, may also significantly impact applications' retention time needs. Based on our findings, we propose an asymmetric-retention core (ARC) design for multicore architectures. ARC features retention time heterogeneity to specialize STT-RAM retention times to applications' needs. We also propose a runtime prediction model to determine the best core on which to run an application, based on the applications' characteristics, their retention time requirements, and available DVFS settings. Results reveal that the proposed approach can reduce the average cache energy by 20.19% and overall processor energy by 7.66%, compared to a homogeneous STT-RAM cache design.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_19612
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ARC: DVFS-Aware Asymmetric-Retention STT-RAM Caches for Energy-Efficient Multicore Processors
Gajaria, Dhruv
Adegbija, Tosiron
Computers and Society
Hardware Architecture
Relaxed retention (or volatile) spin-transfer torque RAM (STT-RAM) has been widely studied as a way to reduce STT-RAM's write energy and latency overheads. Given a relaxed retention time STT-RAM level one (L1) cache, we analyze the impacts of dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) -- a common optimization in modern processors -- on STT-RAM L1 cache design. Our analysis reveals that, apart from the fact that different applications may require different retention times, the clock frequency, which is typically ignored in most STT-RAM studies, may also significantly impact applications' retention time needs. Based on our findings, we propose an asymmetric-retention core (ARC) design for multicore architectures. ARC features retention time heterogeneity to specialize STT-RAM retention times to applications' needs. We also propose a runtime prediction model to determine the best core on which to run an application, based on the applications' characteristics, their retention time requirements, and available DVFS settings. Results reveal that the proposed approach can reduce the average cache energy by 20.19% and overall processor energy by 7.66%, compared to a homogeneous STT-RAM cache design.
title ARC: DVFS-Aware Asymmetric-Retention STT-RAM Caches for Energy-Efficient Multicore Processors
topic Computers and Society
Hardware Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.19612