Energy-efficient and high-performance lock speculation hardware for embedded multicore systems

Date
2015-05-01
Authors
Papagiannopoulou, Dimitra
Capodanno, Giuseppe
Moreshet, Tali
Herlihy, Maurice
Bahar, R. Iris
Version
OA Version
Citation
Dimitra Papagiannopoulou, Giuseppe Capodanno, Tali Moreshet, Maurice Herlihy, R Iris Bahar. 2015. "Energy-Efficient and High-Performance Lock Speculation Hardware for Embedded Multicore Systems." ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS) - Special Issue on Embedded Platforms for Crypto and Regular Papers TECS Homepage archive Volume 14 Issue 3, May 2015 Article No. 51 https://doi.org/10.1145/2700097
Abstract
Embedded systems are becoming increasingly common in everyday life and like their general-purpose counterparts, they have shifted towards shared memory multicore architectures. However, they are much more resource constrained, and as they often run on batteries, energy efficiency becomes critically important. In such systems, achieving high concurrency is a key demand for delivering satisfactory performance at low energy cost. In order to achieve this high concurrency, consistency across the shared memory hierarchy must be accomplished in a cost-effective manner in terms of performance, energy, and implementation complexity. In this article, we propose Embedded-Spec, a hardware solution for supporting transparent lock speculation, without the requirement for special supporting instructions. Using this approach, we evaluate the energy consumption and performance of a suite of benchmarks, exploring a range of contention management and retry policies. We conclude that for resource-constrained platforms, lock speculation can provide real benefits in terms of improved concurrency and energy efficiency, as long as the underlying hardware support is carefully configured.
Description
License
© ACM, 2015 This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS) - Special Issue on Embedded Platforms for Crypto and Regular Papers TECS Homepage archive Volume 14 Issue 3, May 2015 Article No. 51 https://doi.org/10.1145/2700097