A Survey on Hardware Prefetching in Shared-Memory Multiprocessors

Shuaibu Musa Adam, Usman Ibrahim Musa, Kamran Siddique*, Jie Zhang, Jingchen Wang, Danny Hughes, Ka Lok Man

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book or Report/Conference proceedingConference Proceedingpeer-review

Abstract

Memory latency presents a significant obstruction to computer performance. To hide the memory latency, prefetching mechanism is used to retrieve data from the memory before the processor requests it, anticipating near-term data demands. An effective prefetching scheme can reduce cache miss rates and hide memory latency. Prefetching has yielded major advances in both industry and academia; modern high-performance processors nearly universally implement hardware prefetchers. In this paper, we introduce the fundamental concepts underpinning hardware prefetching and survey state-of-the-art hardware prefetching schemes. We delineate common prefetching approaches, analyse their relative merits and limitations, identify key challenges and open research questions. Overall, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of hardware prefetching that highlights critical trends and technologies in this crucial performance optimisation domain.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2023 IEEE East-West Design and Test Symposium, EWDTS 2023 - Proceedings
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9798350314847
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Event2023 IEEE East-West Design and Test Symposium, EWDTS 2023 - Batumi, Georgia
Duration: 22 Sept 202325 Sept 2023

Publication series

Name2023 IEEE East-West Design and Test Symposium, EWDTS 2023 - Proceedings

Conference

Conference2023 IEEE East-West Design and Test Symposium, EWDTS 2023
Country/TerritoryGeorgia
CityBatumi
Period22/09/2325/09/23

Keywords

  • computer performance
  • hardware prefetching
  • memory latency
  • prefetching scheme

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A Survey on Hardware Prefetching in Shared-Memory Multiprocessors'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this